December 16, 2009 – (HOSTSEARCH.COM) –
EvoSwitch, the Dutch carrier-neutral data center with CO2-neutral operations, has lowered the average Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of its data center from 1.6 in 2008 to 1.5 in 2009. Thus, the energy savings compared to a conventional data center has increased from 40 to 50 percent. The ultimate goal of EvoSwitch is to achieve an energy savings rate of 80 percent.
“Actually, our energy savings rate is already more than 50 percent,” says Eric Boonstra, Managing Director of EvoSwitch. “This is due to the fact that the PUE of our data center continuously has been slightly below 1.5 for some time now. The extra savings is primarily due to further investments in green technology and in control systems. The expansion due to customer growth in 2009 was another reason for the reduced PUE.”
Affordable Data Center
Boonstra: “The number 1.5 indicates that our operations at EvoSwitch are quite energy-efficient, although we still have not achieved our goal. We started with a PUE of 1.8 in early 2007. One year ago, the PUE was 1.6. We now have a PUE of 1.5, but we will continue to invest in further energy savings. This is critical to EvoSwitch and to our customers, since the negative impact on the environment caused by the data center sector should be kept to an absolute minimum.. In addition, energy prices will rise, and we want to be able to keep our energy bills, and those of our customers, at an affordable level.”
EvoSwitch uses much of its energy savings to finance its current and new investments in green technologies. Boonstra: “Building a green data center is more expensive than building a conventional data center, for the simple reason that green technology costs more than conventional equipment. But we do not pass on these extra costs to our customers. And that also applies to the green power we use and our investments in CO2 compensation in collaboration with the Climate Neutral Group.”
“For customers, investments in green technologies are the ultimate insurance against high energy bills in the near future,” says Boonstra. “This keeps their energy bills manageable, predictable and affordable. This is a key criterion, especially for major IT infrastructures.”
Copenhagen Climate Conference
EvoSwitch is a good example of a company that successfully combines green and profitable business operations. Boonstra: “To put it even more strongly: significant energy savings will, in the near future, be a prerequisite for data centers to remain in business, and a necessity for customers in order to keep their IT infrastructures affordable. IT infrastructures generally use huge amounts of power, unlike green data centers such as EvoSwitch.”
The data center sector could have been a topic for the Copenhagen Climate Conference, according to Boonstra. “The data center sector in its conventional form is said to be just as environmentally harmful as the aviation sector, and that might be true. Thanks to green technologies, the use of green power, and the fact that IT infrastructures are of vital importance to companies, this huge power consumption is justifiable. Also, using a shared data center for multiple IT infrastructures is still more efficient than each company having its own small data center. But it also demonstrates that the environmental benefits would be significant if all data centers operated in an environmentally sound manner.”
The green design
The environmentally sound design of the EvoSwitch data center is based on advice provided by TNO (www.tno.nl) and on in-house innovation by a dedicated design team. This resulted in an energy-efficient design when the data center opened in April 2007, using technologies such as Free Cooling (cooling by using the outdoor temperature), Cold Corridors (separation of hot and cold airflows), and UPS technology with Delta Conversion.
The EvoSwitch R&D team is currently working on a new cooling design that will further improve the PUE. Boonstra: “This will result in further reduction of capital expenses and operational expenses, which will substantially benefit the environment as well as EvoSwitch customers. With this new design, we aim to achieve a PUE of 1.2.”
About EvoSwitch
EvoSwitch is a carrier and climate neutral data center. The data center is energy saving and has a PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) of 1.6, aiming towards a PUE of 1.2. EvoSwitch is located in the Amsterdam area, has good connections, a 20 Megawatt power capacity, and an ample floor surface exceeding 9,000 square meters. EvoSwitch is ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certified. For customers, this means that their IT infrastructure at EvoSwitch is protected following the highest security standards. EvoSwitch’s operations are fully climate neutral. In collaboration with the Climate Neutral Group, the data center invests in global projects to restore the CO2 balance in the atmosphere (www.climateneutralgroup.com). EvoSwitch customers can use the logos in the partner program The Green Fan on their website to demonstrate that they use a climate neutral data center (www.thegreenfan.com). In January 2009, a report issued by the German Federal Ministry of the Environment described EvoSwitch as one of the world’s eleven most energy saving data centers. In the Netherlands, EvoSwitch joined a group of 16 leading ICT companies in signing the Multi Year Energy Efficiency Agreement (MJA) of the Ministry for Economic Affairs. The MJA aims to realize 30% energy efficiency over a period of fifteen years.
