Hewlett Packard and other companies deploying zero carbon data centers

[I am pleased to see that several companies are starting to recognize that building zero carbon data centers is a more sustainable direction rather than focusing on energy efficiency (i.e. PUE).
As China, India and the rest of the developing world starts to deploy data centers GHG emissions will continue to increase in portion to the number of data centers regardless of the PUE. But building zero carbon data centers powered only by renewable energy means that as the world deploys many more hundred of data centers GHG emissions will remain virtually unaltered and close to zero.

The other attraction of these types of solutions is that they are much more adaptable and survivable in an era of severe weather due to climate change, when the existing coal powered electrical grid is likely to be seriously compromised. This is the type of thinking we need in all sectors of society if we are going to meaningfully address climate change. Hewlett Packard is also involved in GreenCloud project in NY state – which is a distributed follow the wind/follow the sun zero carbon data center project similar to the Greenstar program. -- BSA

Infinity Carbon Data Center
http://www.infinitysdc.net/inovation/

Much has been said about green energy for data centres over the last three years, but to date nothing has become a reality in the UK. By partnering with a local agricultural co-operative, Infinity have been able to deliver true carbon neutral energy. This scheme uses on-site generation in a scalable modular manner, which is both innovative, economic and manageable in the long term.

The use of an anaerobic digester plant at Infinity Martlesham will provide our clients with a golden opportunity to truly address the challenge of reducing the carbon footprint of their biggest carbon source; IT in the data centre. With the introduction of the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme bringing not only ‘carbon taxation’ but the public ‘naming and shaming’ of the most significant energy users and carbon producers, Infinity’s green data centre campus provides the means to meet that challenge.
Whilst most other green energy developments require massive upfront investment with long lead times to deploy, Infinity’s solution is simple and reliable and comes in a proven scalable package used widely across Europe.

By working directly with the local agricultural community farmers benefit from additional income and access to natural fertiliser for crop production at lower cost than ‘inorganic’ fertilisers and without the pollution.
Further efficiencies can be gained by combining ground source heat pumps into the mechanical system to allow even greater energy and cost savings.




http://t.co/dmnheKS2
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/05/30/hp-developing-net-zero-data-center-concept/

Can existing strategies be combined to create a “net zero” data center that requires no net energy from utility power grids? HP Labs said this week that it is developing such a concept, which is being tested at a 3,000 square foot facility at the company’s campus in Palo Alto, Calif.
The HP testbed brings together a photovoltaic power array, a cooling system that can use either fresh air or mechanical cooling, and consolidation strategies that boost server utilization to reduce power demand. The secret sauce is management software that can orchestrate the energy supply and demand to maximize the use of renewable power and minimize dependence on the utility grid.

The proof-of-concept confront challenges often seen in solar implementations, including the array’s limited capacity of 134 kilowatts and a limited window of generation hours – namely, when the sun shines. This was used to power a testbed comprised of four ProLiant BL465c G7 servers, each with two 12-core 1.8 Ghz processors and 64 GB of memory and a total of 48 KVM virtual machines.
Matching Workloads to Daytime Power Availability
A key component of HP’s strategy is using a mix of critical and non-critical workloads that are managed by service level agreements. The HP Labs software estimates the output available from the solar array and the power required to run the applications, and then schedules workloads to take advantage of the daytime power peaks from the array.
This approach may not be suitable for many facilities requiring round-the-clock availability and the ability to scale workloads up and down. But HP said it could be attractive to users with mixed workloads, particularly companies in international markets.
“Information technology has the power to be an equalizer across societies globally, but the cost of IT services, and by extension the cost of energy, is prohibitive and inhibits widespread adoption,” said Cullen Bash, distinguished technologist, HP, and interim director, Sustainable Ecosystems Research Group, HP Labs. “The HP Net-Zero Energy Data Center not only aims to minimize the environmental impact of computing, but also has a goal of reducing energy costs associated with data-center operations to extend the reach of IT accessibility globally.”
HP Labs researchers will present a new research paper, “Towards the Design and Operation of Net-Zero Energy Data Centers,” tomorrow at IEEE’s 13th annual Intersociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electrical Systems. Here’s a video overview from HP Labs of the net-zero concept. HP’spresentation
.
------
R&E Network and Green Internet Consultant.
email: Bill.St.Arnaud@gmail.com
twitter: BillStArnaud
blog: http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com/
skype: Pocketpro