ENVIRONMENT

With the best PUE (Power Usage Efficiency) value of 1.21 datadock is the most energy-saving and eco-friendly data center in Europe.

The PUE value is retrieved by dividing a data center's total energy demand by only the IT's energy demand (servers, storage, network equipment etc.). That means for a PUE value of 1.0 that the data center's complete power requirement would exclusively be caused by the IT. datadock's value of 1.21 states that only 21% of the IT's own energy requirement are additionally needed for running the data center infrastructure. In a study carried out by the German internet association "eco" ("Bestandsaufnahme effiziente Rechenzentren in Deutschland": Survey of German data center efficiency) an average of more than 60% additional energy demand (PUE 1.62) was detected for German data centers. A value that is to be considered a good one as compared to international values.

The outstanding PUE value of datadock is partially achieved by using geothermal energy for cooling. Cooling is normally a major energy factor in data center operations. However, by being able to use the area's extensive groundwater supplies (it is one of the groundwater-richest in Europe) and not having to cool the 12° C cold water down any further, much energy can be saved.

The groundwater is pumped out of the wells, then it is filtered to avoid any accumulation in the pipes, and finally it is used inside of datadock to cool down the inner cooling circuit by means of heat exchangers. This circuit in turn provides coldness for the climate systems in order to eventually create cold air.

In the server rooms the cold air is led into the so called cold aisles through perforated floor panels. There it is absorbed through the servers' front sides by their internal ventilation. At the back sides of the servers the now warmed-up air is released to hot aisles, where it is reapplied to the cooling cycle. The so-called housing of the racks allows for a directed feed of air flows to the components that need cooling. That way, the needed cooling capacity and energy consumption is reduced.

In addition, only the latest energy-saving components are used in the data center, for example the transformers, UPS devices and climate units. The precision climate system, for instance, cools large rooms with up to 60% less energy consumption than other compressor cooling systems, and the installed UPS system has the best efficiency factor on the market of up to 96%.

The diesel generators for datadock's emergency power supply operate with state-of-the-art engines by MTU, which are leaders of their class regarding emissions. They have the lowest emission values according to TA-Luft 1/2 (technical directions for keeping the air clean by the German federal ministry of the environment). A number of security measures around the diesel generators help to avoid that any fuel gets into the environment, e.g. during refueling or through a leak.

Source: PSI, IER; average 935 g CO₂ per kWh power from black coal