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Norway’s Fjord-Cooled Data Center
The tunnels linking data halls in the Green Mountain Data Center in Norway, which will use cool water from a nearby fjord to support its cooling system.
A small but growing number of data centers are slashing their cooling costs by using the environment as their chiller, tapping nearby rivers, underground lakes, wells and even the Baltic Sea. A new project in Norway plans to draw cold water from an adjacent fjord and use it to cool data halls.
The Green Mountain Data Center is located on the shores of the island of Rennesoy, inside concrete buildings within caves carved out of the mountain. Racks of servers will now fill underground halls that once stored ammunition for NATO.
The project is being developed by the investment arm of the Norwegian shipping firm Smedvig, which is working with a leading Nordic IT services firm, ErgoGroup, and electric utility Lyse Energi.
The ability to use the fjord as a low-cost source for chilled water was a major advantage of the Rennesoy location. Green Mountain’s cooling system taps the fjord for a steady supply of water at 8 degrees C (46 degrees F), which is optimal for use in data center cooling systems.
Chilled water is a key component of many data center cooling systems. This water is often supplied by chillers, large refrigeration units that require a hefty amount of electricity to operate. Eliminating the chillers will usually allow a data center to operate with lower energy bills than similar facilities using chillers.
The Green Mountain Data Center is being built out in two phases. The first phase is designed for traditional colocation space, and will include about 7,000 square meters (about 75,000 square feet) of data center space. Another 4,000 square meters (43,000 square feet) will house data center container solutions, which will also use chilled water for cooling.
The developers are in the late stages of negotiations with Norwegian clients, but believe the facility may be attractive to multi-nationals based in the U.S. and Europe. “We are now mainly focusing on corporate customers with worldwide facilities who wish to reduce their carbon footprint across their portfolio of data centres, improve their ‘green credentials’ and reduce spending on power,” said Jonathan Evans of Green Mountain.
The build-out of the colocation halls will begin in January, and the power to the facility is also being upgraded. Green Mountain expects the first clients to be installed in late 2012. Here’s a video providing a conceptual overview of the project.
The Green Mountain Data Center is adjacent to a fjord, which provides a supply of 8 degree C water that will be used in the cooling system.
The latest in green data centers: Fjord-cooled — Cleantech News and Analysis
Posted December 21st, 2011[...] to the chilly Nordic waters to keep data centers cool in a low-energy way. Data Center Knowledge takes a look at the Green Mountain Data Center on the island of Rennesoy in Norway that uses the cold water of a [...]
Norway's Green Mountain Data Center | nwlinux
Posted December 21st, 2011[...] location The refit of the Green Mountain Data Center will occur in two stages. “The first phase is designed for traditional colocation space, and will include about 7,000 [...]
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Posted December 23rd, 2011[...] Norway’s Fjord-Cooled Data Center Share this:FacebookEmail └ Tags: Data Center, Energy [...]
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Posted December 24th, 2011[...] over “3 x 2 floors of Mountain Halls”, that presumably means 3 two-story halls. According to Data Centre Knowledge, this will contain 118,000 sq ft (11,000 sq m) assembled in dual stages. The initial will see a [...]
Green Mountain Data Center is Buried Underground and Cooled By Norway's Fjords | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World
Posted December 26th, 2011[...] The center also sources all of its power from a number of very close renewable energy providers, which makes it totally carbon neutral. Combined with energy efficient design inside, the center is promoting itself as an environmentally friendly server farm. With a variety of close power sources nearby with a high level of redundancy, the farm is also promising a 99.9997% availability. Most of the data center’s business will come locally from Norway, but they may also attract clients from Europe and the US because of their eco-friendly offerings. Development of the mountain halls and server rooms is going on now and they expect to be up and running sometime in late 2012. [...]
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Posted December 26th, 2011[...] The center also sources all of its power from a number of very close renewable energy providers, which makes it totally carbon neutral. Combined with energy efficient design inside, the center is promoting itself as an environmentally friendly server farm. With a variety of close power sources nearby with a high level of redundancy, the farm is also promising a 99.9997% availability. Most of the data centers business will come locally from Norway, but they may also attract clients from Europe and the US because of their eco-friendly offerings. Development of the mountain halls and server rooms is going on now and they expect to be up and running sometime in late 2012. [...]
Datatopias: Green Mountain Data Center | Facility Gateway – News & Events
Posted December 28th, 2011[...] provides Green Mountain Data Center with naturally cooled water (46 degrees Fahrenheit), which is optimal for use within data center cooling systems. The local fjord provides much of the energy saving costs for [...]
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