Now THIS... Is A Cool Story !!!

[WillyT]

Norway’s Fjord-Cooled Data Center
By: Rich Miller - datacenterknowledge.com
December 20th, 2011


The tunnels linking data halls in the Green Mountain Data Center in Norway,
which will use cool water from a nearby fjord to support its cooling system.

<snip>

A small but growing number of data centers are slashing their cooling costs by using the environment as their chiller, tapping nearby rivers, underground lakes, wells and even the Baltic Sea. A new project in Norway plans to draw cold water from an adjacent fjord and use it to cool data halls.

The Green Mountain Data Center is located on the shores of the island of Rennesoy, inside concrete buildings within caves carved out of the mountain. Racks of servers will now fill underground halls that once stored ammunition for NATO.

The project is being developed by the investment arm of the Norwegian shipping firm Smedvig, which is working with a leading Nordic IT services firm, ErgoGroup, and electric utility Lyse Energi.

The ability to use the fjord as a low-cost source for chilled water was a major advantage of the Rennesoy location. Green Mountain’s cooling system taps the fjord for a steady supply of water at 8 degrees C (46 degrees F), which is optimal for use in data center cooling systems.

Chilled water is a key component of many data center cooling systems. This water is often supplied by chillers, large refrigeration units that require a hefty amount of electricity to operate. Eliminating the chillers will usually allow a data center to operate with lower energy bills than similar facilities using chillers.

The Green Mountain Data Center is being built out in two phases. The first phase is designed for traditional colocation space, and will include about 7,000 square meters (about 75,000 square feet) of data center space. Another 4,000 square meters (43,000 square feet) will house data center container solutions, which will also use chilled water for cooling.

<snip>

More: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/12/20/norways-fjord-cooled-data-center/

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The Big Chill: Scandinavia Hosts Tech Companies’ Data
BY LAURA LYNCH - BBC
MAY 24, 2012

<snip>

Facebook isn’t the only high-tech company building a server farm in the north.

While the likes of Facebook and Google have headquarters in California, their servers can be anywhere.

And more and more, these server farms are being built in chilly, northern places – it’s one way of keeping energy costs down, because the machines have to be kept cool.

*1.5 to 2 percent of global electricity is used by servers*

The countries of Scandinavia are now competing to attract this sort of server business.

The World’s Laura Lynch visited another server site – this one on Rennesoy Island in Norway.

<snip>

Link: http://www.theworld.org/2012/05/data-centers-nordic-countries/

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GreenMountain site: http://www.greenmountain.no/index.php?cmd=forsiden

[freshwest]

1. Great idea!

[wilsonbooks]

2. I wonder if they have calculated what the effect will be on their sources of cool water?

If enough was used it would raise the temperature of the water sources, which might have nasty unintended consequences.