POWER AND COOLING:
Alternative Technologies for Data Centres

Published February, 2008

The survey is a valuable reader for data centre managers wishing to speedily review the array of technologies, available and under development, designed to reduce power consumption and cooling requirements. The short survey reveals that on balance there are more options likely to occur in cooling than in power.

Cooling technologies are more focused on applications that can be installed directly in the data centre. Air, liquid, gas and new nano-cooling developments suggest that thus far, a definitive or optimal solution has not yet fully emerged and there is no outstanding leader. For operational managers, identifying an interim solution appears to be the best that can be achieved.

Power supply is in contrast an issue that will be solved more probably by large energy companies although innovative solutions particularly using solar power have been attempted by data centres themselves. Photovoltaic or PV for short, for example, appears to show much promise. Wind power and fuel cell technologies also each have compelling arguments for their adoption in the data centre but the drawback remains the level of investment required.

It appears that at a time when oil prices have reached peaks previously unknown, we are at a point on the continuum where demand for power in the data centre is also coincidentally at unprecedented levels. Facility owners will not reach an equilibrium in costs until assured solutions have been fully commercialised and that may still be some years away.

In the meantime, this survey provides clear evidence of the research and development effort underway by both industry and academia to identify ways forward in resolving the two most critical challenges confronting an industry charged with reducing its consumption and costs.