Datacenter fa19-516-162

E.Datacenter.2: Carbon footprint of data centers

E.Datacenter.2.a:

The yearly cost and CO2 footprint of Google's data center at Singapore have been added to the file.

E.Datacenter.2.b:

The 230,455 sq. ft. [1] Google data center in Singapore is the first Google data center in South East Asia [2]. It came online in December 2013. Google is developing two more data centers at the same location.

This data center uses an estimated 25 MW of power with a PUE of 1.15 [3].

Then the IT Load of the center can be calculated as

PUE = Total Load / IT Load [4]

IT Load = Total Load / PUE

IT Load = 25 * 1000/1.15 = 21740 kW

On putting these values in the Schneider Electric Data Center Carbon Footprint Calculator, the yearly cost and carbon footprint of the data center were calculated as follows:

Data center	Electricity Cost ($/kW)	IT Load (kW)	Yearly Cost ($)	Yearly CO2 Footprint (tons)	CO2 equivalent in cars
Google Singapore Jurong West	0.13	21,740	29.6M	160,089	35,293

E.Datacenter.3: My Carbon footprint

My carbon footprint has been added to the file.

E.Datacenter.4: Hydro Power

Hydro power is energy in moving water[5]. It is one of the oldest sources for producing electricity. It is generated by rotating big turbines in heavy flowing streams or rivers or using a dam that releases water when necessary. The turbines then spin a generator that produces electricity.

Hydro electricity accounts for nearly 7% of the total electricity produced and 23% of the electricity produced using renewable resources in the US.

Data centers that run on hydro power

Near the Linth river in Switzerland, Data Center Light has established one of a kind of data center that boasts of an in-house hydro-power plant. It uses electricity generated by 100% renewable resources. It produces over 8000 MW/h of energy per year[6].
Facebook opened a data center in Lulea, Sweden that is mostly powered by locally generated hydroelectric power. The center has an excellent PUE rating due to factors such as using natural air to cool the systems and using efficient hardware[7].
Hydro66, a British corporation, has opened a 1000 sq. m. data center in North Sweden close to the Facebook's data center. This facility also uses the hydro electric power generated by the local plant.

E.Datacenter.5: California

In September 2018, California passed a bill to move the entire power grid to renewable energy [11].
California also has an issued order to remove as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as it emits [12].
"The California Energy Commission estimates that 32 percent of retail energy sales were powered by renewable sources last year" [Camila Domonoske, 2018][12].
"California has abundant energy resources, being among the top producers of oil, hydroelectricity, solar, biomass, and geothermal energy in the United States" [13].
Due to strict emission laws, no coal-fired power plants operate in California.
California leads the nation in electricity generation from non-hydroelectric renewable energy sources, including geothermal power, wind power, and solar power.
The site https://www.dsireusa.org/ has several state incentives for residential to big corporations to promote the use of renewable energy.

E.Datacenter.8:

In August 2019, a power outage at Nissan data center in Denver, Colorado led to four days of shut down of most of the Nissan and Infiniti dealerships across North America, Canada and Mexico [10].

Reason for data center outage

Extreme heat in Colorado led to multiple power outages in the Denver area. The Nissan data center was also affected by this power outage. The power outage disabled the backup systems and made the recovery even more difficult [8].

Effects of data center outage

The power breakdown resulted in their communication system called NNANet to shut down. This resulted in the dealers not being able to order new cars , parts, file warranty claims, check the inventory of other dealers or customer payoff information [9].
The dealers couldn't make any sales [9].
The data crash also brought down production at Nissan's factories in Tennessee and Mississippi [10].

How it could have been avoided

It took four days for the data center to recover from this outage. This was because the backup systems were co-located and were affected by the same power outage. If there are multiple data centers for a big corporation, a backup of data, applications, and systems should be kept in a different region because it has a very less chance of affecting different locations [8].