Location, Location, Location<\/span><\/h2>\n Google has three facilities in Europe, located in Ireland, Belgium and Finland. In Hamina, Finland, the facility makes use of water from the Bay of Finland for cooling systems, the “first of its kind anywhere in the world,” according to Google. Similarly, the data center in St. Ghislain, Belgium draws water from a nearby industrial canal. Dublin, Ireland\u2019s facility makes use of an air-cooling system “that takes advantage of Ireland\u2019s weather” and does away with the need for air-conditioning units.\n<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a tech giant like Google, though. One would assume they have the easy bank to build facilities like this, but others are on board too.\n<\/p>\n
Just last year Portugal saw the opening of Portugal Telecom\u2019s newest facility in the city of Covilh\u00e3. It is equipped with an air conditioning system, but Portugal Telecom says it only plans to use the system for about six days a year, rather it will rely on rainwater collection for cooling. Meanwhile, the facility uses 1,600 photovoltaic panels for power, but this will only generate 30 percent of its energy.\n<\/p>\n
We\u2019re now seeing the growth of data centers powered by renewables by more than 50 percent, and sometimes 100 percent. Next Generation Data (NGD) in Wales, which includes clients like telco BT, currently runs one of the world\u2019s largest data centers and runs off a private connection powered by wind and tidal energy, being the UK\u2019s fully green-powered data center. Elsewhere, World Back Ups in the UK built its first solar-powered facility in 2010 in North Wiltshire.\n<\/p>\n
There are many obstacles facing companies looking to build data centers. In summer 2014, the University of Delaware killed off plans for a new $1billion data center over GHG emission concerns.\n<\/p>\n
Price of land remains an issue too, with Microsoft recently paying six times the normal price of land in Iowa, the same state that\u2019s home to one of Facebook\u2019s centers, so could land for data centers become pricier in Iowa?\n<\/p>\n
As cooling remains one of the hardest issues for data centers, expect more companies to look to new places with cooler climates and ideal resources. “It\u2019s best to locate the data center in a cooler climate such as the Northern United States, perhaps even on a mountain,” says CEO of Additive Analytics, Laura Hamilton, as much higher elevations are cooler than sea level. Meanwhile, Iceland has begun to prove popular with companies thanks to its climate and geothermal power sources.\n<\/p>\n
“Locating a facility on the equator is madness because you\u2019d be cooling from ambient temperature of roughly 81 \u00baF [27 \u00baC],” says Brian Reynolds, of Climate Money Policy. “A data center in Iceland however needs to be cooled from an average temperature of 39 \u00baF [4 \u00baC].” These concerns put a greater demand on companies to plan their locations better for the future.\n<\/p>\n
There are few large tech companies that have made the full switch to green for 100 percent of their operations, but with political and legal pressure always growing, soon data centers big and small will have no choice in the matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
High-emission businesses that haven\u2019t made the switch to friendlier power sources are coming under mounting pressure to finally cut down on the CO2 they\u2019re pumping out. This is regardless of the type of business, and it certainly includes data centers. As our lives are becoming increasingly connected, and especially with the onset of the Internet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7451,"featured_media":49009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[584,553],"tags":[],"category_partsoff":[],"class_list":["post-49008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-data-centers","category-storage"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
How Lawmakers Are Pushing Data Centers in a Green Direction - Techopedia<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n