At Onyx Group we have considered all aspects of the enviro
nmental impacts our Edinburgh Data Centre has, looking at the structure and design as a whole to discover every possible way we can improve.
Our Commitment to the Environment – CarbonZero Data Racks
As part of our commitment to the environment we have calculated the carbon dioxide emissions produced by the running of the data racks within our Edinburgh Data Centre. We have offset this carbon footprint on behalf of our customers to provide them with CarbonZero data racks. To do this we are working with leading carbon management company co2balance, balancing out the environmental impact of our data racks through the carbon saving of the African Energy Efficient Stove Project.
Reducing Our Environmental Impact
With a strong focus on areas both in design and operation, we have been able to reduce our environmental impact whilst also increasing the efficiency and routine running of our Edinburgh Data Centre through innovative planning.
Design:
- Innovative Design - The use of channels under the floors to manage the direction of cold air creates hot and cold aisles within the data centre to ensure excess energy isn’t being used, reducing the work load of the AC units.
- Fire Protection - The use of vapor fire suppression rather than gas is a precaution put in place to lower emissions whilst also creating a more effective safety precaution.
- Safety - The installation of blanking plates to increase efficiency as standard.
Operation:
- Back-up Generators - On-site running of N+1 back-up generators ensures system availability in the event of component failure which utilises only the resources that are required – we only use 2 AC units at any one time when we have the capacity to have 9 units running which also adds resilience due to AC unit backups.
- 24x7x365 Remote Hands Assistance - Technical specialists continually monitor the AC units to ensure they are efficiently flowing.
- CarbonZero - We have joined up with co2balance to offset our carbon emissions for all racks and the building which gives is the opportunity to offer our customers a totally carbon emission free service that is not only environmentally friendly but socially supporting.
The benefit of our approach is illustrated within the results of our PUE which has been reduced from 2.5 to 1.7 in less than a year, an improvement of 32%. We are aiming to get this percentage closer to 50% improvement by the time we finish phase 3. These results have been achieved by constant hourly monitor readings of the rack PDU’s. To keep improving we are now monitoring and measuring our DCiE as of February 2010.
Click here for more information on our Edinburgh Data Centre.
