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The electric energy demand of data centers in Germany has grown rapidly from 10.5 TWh/a in 2010 to 13.2 TWh/a in 2017, an average of 25% of which are used to fulfill the data centers' cooling demand. In order to increase its energy efficiency, TU Darmstadt applies a new cooling concept in the next generation of its high‐performance computing data center "Lichtenberg II." Instead of the current air‐cooled servers with water‐cooled rear doors at 17‐24°C, the new data center will be equipped with direct hot‐water cooling for the high‐performance computer, supplying heat at a temperature of 45°C. The high‐temperature waste heat is used for heating purposes on the university's campus Lichtwiese. For waste heat utilization, two concepts are presented, either integrating the heat in the return line of the district heating network or using it locally in buildings located near the data center. Reductions in CO2 emission and annuity are generated both by decreased compression cooling demand for the data center and by decreased heat generation due to waste heat utilization. Depending on the scenario, a total of 20%‐50% of the waste heat emitted by the high‐performance computer can be used for heating purposes, while the remaining heat is dissipated efficiently via free cooling without additional energy demand for mechanical chillers. CO2 emission can be decreased by up to 720 tCO2/a, representing a reduction of about 4% of the total emission at campus Lichtwiese. TU Darmstadt is currently implementing the waste heat integration into its district heating network and will benefit from this concept starting in 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data centers are estimated to have the fastest growing carbon footprint from across the whole information and communication technology (ICT) sector. Evaluating the performance of data centers in terms of energy efficiency and sustainability is becoming an increasingly important matter for organizations and governments (e.g., for regulation or reputation purposes). It nonetheless remains difficult to achieve such evaluation, as data centers imply to take into consideration a wide range of dimensions and stakeholders. Even though a wide range of sustainability performance indicators exist in the literature, there is still a lack of frameworks to help data center stakeholders (spanning from data center owners, governmental regulators to engineers/field operators) to evaluate and understand how a data center performs in terms of sustainable development/behavior. Our research work proposes such a framework, whose originality lies in the combination of state-of-the-art sustainability metrics with the biomimicry commandments of eco-mature system, which enables holistic sustainability assessment of data centres. From a theoretical perspective, the proposed model is designed based on a benefit-cost analysis using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique. This approach allows data center stakeholders for specifying their own preferences and/or expertise in the comparison process, whose practicability is demonstrated in this paper considering three data center candidates, which are respectively located in France, Germany and Sweden. • A new model for comparing data center sustainability performance is proposed. • The model makes use of state-of-the-art sustainability metrics together with biomimicry lessons. • The model is designed based on a benefit-cost approach using the AHP technique. • A comparison study is carried out with three distinct data center candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the high demands of new technologies such as social networks, e-commerce and cloud computing, more energy is being consumed in order to store all the data produced and provide the high availability required. Over the years, this increase in energy consumption has brought about a rise in both the environmental impacts and operational costs. Some companies have adopted the concept of a green data center, which is related to electricity consumption and CO2 emissions, according to the utility power source adopted. In Brazil, almost 70% of electrical power is derived from clean electricity generation, whereas in China 65% of generated electricity comes from coal. In addition, the value per kWh in the US is much lower than in other countries surveyed. In the present work, we conducted an integrated evaluation of costs and CO2 emissions of the electrical infrastructure in data centers, considering the different energy sources adopted by each country. We used a multi-layered artificial neural network, which could forecast consumption over the following months, based on the energy consumption history of the data center. All these features were supported by a tool, the applicability of which was demonstrated through a case study that computed the CO2 emissions and operational costs of a data center using the energy mix adopted in Brazil, China, Germany and the US. China presented the highest CO2 emissions, with 41,445 tons per year in 2014, followed by the US and Germany, with 37,177 and 35,883, respectively. Brazil, with 8459 tons, proved to be the cleanest. Additionally, this study also estimated the operational costs assuming that the same data center consumes energy as if it were in China, Germany and Brazil. China presented the highest kWh/year. Therefore, the best choice according to operational costs, considering the price of energy per kWh, is the US and the worst is China. Considering both operational costs and CO2 emissions, Brazil would be the best option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]