The use of renewable energies is increasingly becoming compulsory for data centre operators, and particularly for hyperscalers. A large data centre set up close to a wind or solar farm will benefit from clean energy that doesn’t need to travel far. However, there is another factor that could come to the fore in the future. Since data centres generate a lot of heat, it would make sense to build them close to infrastructures that can utilise that heat, such as hothouses and aquaponic facilities. When a data centre is equipped with water cooling systems, the warm water these produce, which reaches around 60 degrees Celsius, could be used to heat nearby buildings, for example. Green IT experts at the Borderstep Institute in Berlin have calculated that, in theory, a tenth of the heating requirements in Frankfurt – one of Germany’s data centre hotspots – could be met today using waste heat from local data centres.

OPEN COMPUTE PROJECT (OCP)

Large hyperscalers such as Amazon (AWS), Google and Microsoft are making ever greater use of an open standardised technology for this kind of purpose. As a result, Open Compute has been catapulted to centre stage. Rittal is a member and technology driver in the Open Compute Project (OCP), which is redefining hardware and making it more efficient, flexible and scalable. Numerous technological pioneers have come together as part of the project to collaborate on dismantling the black box of proprietary IT infrastructures.

The aim is to achieve a wider selection, better adaptability and cost savings. Whereas, in the past, hyperscalers used sometimes very different technology in their various data centres, they are now focused on end-to-end harmonisation. One trend that addresses both the lack of space in data centres and the issue of energy consumption is the use of DC technology. This helps eliminate the use of bulky power packs while increasing energy efficiency.