Falling for hydro all over again by carol wilson

Views and Opinions on Green IT (Jul 27 2009) Power and Cooling , Hydro

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   You can’t deny there’s a romantic ring to the idea that Niagara Falls will power Yahoo!’s next data center, being built in Lockport, N.Y.  And while this is a recent development, hydroelectric power was the first renewable source of energy sought by those building data centers.

   The reasons are obvious – there’s nothing uncertain about hydroelectric power – its costs and benefits are well established, as is the technology that enables man to convert moving water into electricity. Before there was a major environmental push, major data center builders such as Google sought out river-side location for their largest operations, such as Google’s Oregon data center complex on the banks of the Columbia River.

   What Yahoo! is doing is going the next step – or three. For one thing, in addition to using primarily hydroelectric power to run its data center, Yahoo! has designed the center in way that enables it to benefit from upstate New York climate to provide 100% of the cooling for its data center servers and other gear, according to Yahoo! co-founder David Filo. That means that 90% of the hydroelectric power will go to actually run the data center and not cool it off.

   Secondly, Yahoo’s Power Usage Effectiveness for its upstate New York facility will be 1.1, according to Filo. The PUE is the measurement that the Green Grid established and it measures what percentage of a data center’s total power consumption is going to power the IT equipment. Having a 1.1 rating is exceptional since it means that, for every 500 watts of server demand for power, only 550 watts is pulled from the commercial power source.

   And finally, Filo says Yahoo! is making a break from its past habit of trading carbon credits and will instead focus its resources on reducing its carbon footprint.

   Of course, even an old dog like hydroelectric can learn new tricks. In Japan, towns are looking to micro hydroelectric power plants as a new way of moving off the grid.

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