DATA CENTRES Climate Change Agreements


The data centre sector already has a Climate Change Agreement (CCA), which is a negotiated agreement with the government offered to energy-intensive industries. In return for a reduction in or exclusion from paying some carbon-related taxes, participants agree to commit to energy efficiency targets which are specific to that industry.


In the data centre sector, one Climate Change Agreement ran from 2014 to 2020. The government announced earlier this year that the agreements would also be extended until 2025, meaning that data centres will continue to have their carbon emissions and energy use measured against agreed targets for the next five years. The potential annual savings in these carbon- related taxes can run to many thousands of pounds for data centres, meaning it is also cost effective for businesses to commit to reducing carbon emissions.


Reducing energy costs


To make these cost savings even more significant, data centres in the UK also face higher energy costs than many other parts of the world. As a result of the pandemic driving demand for data centres, it is a competitive global marketplace to be in. By their nature, the geographical location of clients may not be a factor in deciding which data centre is chosen, so energy efficiency – and the cost savings it can bring – can also become a competitive issue. There are, therefore, commercial benefits to data centres owners and operators as a result of continuing to make energy reductions wherever possible – and this can provide a real opportunity for air conditioning installers able to offer energy efficient cooling for these business critical spaces.


Re-using heat It’s fair to say that UK data centres have already shown firm commitments to energy efficiency and sustainability. For example, almost all of the Climate Change Agreement participants are compliant with ISO 140001, a family of standards that help organisations minimise how they negatively affect the environment, and half have signed up to the EU Code of Conduct for data centre energy efficiency, which outlines best practices and acts as an education and reference document for data centres operators. Now, it’s time to look at what else can be


done, particularly in the building services arena. One of the potential savings highlighted by TechUK is the reuse of heat. By nature, data centres and IT rooms produce large amounts of heat as a by-product. This heat


www.acr-news.com


is often simply expelled from the building, but there is technology already available which can make heat reuse a highly cost-effective option. Heat recovery captures heat rejected from a


cooling system and applies this to other areas of building services such as space or water heating, making it possible to save significant amounts of energy while reducing long-term operational costs.


Clearly, in a building or room which ejects large amounts of heat, the ability to use that energy elsewhere has enormous potential. What are the options for heat recovery? There are several approaches for heat recovery, including simultaneous heating and cooling chillers. These are particularly useful in buildings where both heating and cooling is required at the same time. The heat extracted from areas that require cooling, such as where IT hardware is operating and heat can be provided to other occupied spaces, such as offices, where occupants need comfort heating. It can also boost the temperature of hot water to reduce the load on boilers providing hot water to a building.


For those looking to move away from gas


boilers altogether, and make use of clean electricity, for example, there are also chillers with simultaneous heating. One of the primary benefits of this approach for new-build projects is that no gas boiler is required since the system provides cooling and heating, as well as hot water heating, removing the need for a gas connection all together.


It is also possible to use a dedicated heat recovery heat pump. The water-source heat pump uses the condenser water or return chiller water as its energy source. It is an excellent approach for large water-cooled chiller applications that improves the performance of large-capacity chillers and dedicated plant – enhancing the ROI of capital expenditure and improving long-term performance. Data centres now play a critical role for


businesses in the UK and will continue to do so as technology becomes more and more integral in our everyday lives. As significant energy users, they also have a responsibility to find more energy efficient, sustainable ways of cooling and heating – and the potential to support the countries journey towards its carbon reduction targets.


November 2020 39


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48