Project Promoters :

• Microsoft Corporation, www.microsoft.com, UNITED STATES

Project summary :

Microsoft is launching its Dublin Data Centre in line with a strategy to constantly improve the energy efficiency of our data centres all over the world to reduce the amount of energy it comsumes. We aim to increase the effectiveness of our operations, to work with the industry and public authorities to improve the overall sustainability of the indusrty and to re-invent data centres.

The Dublin Data Centre that is going to be launched in September 2009 in Dublin is 50% more energy efficient than a traditional one built just 3 years ago.

We are working today to eliminate 50% of data centres energy consumption (air movement, cooling, lightning, electricity transformer) and reduce significantly the other 50% (IT equipment).

We are using an integrated set of measures to improve the environmental sustainability of our data centres. First we are increasing the effectiveness of data centers utilization. Second, we are reducing the use of resources (water, watts). Third we are reducing waste (material used, improve PUE).

Specific design and operational strategies for driving the sustainability and efficiency of this facility include:

* Almost exclusive use of 'free-air' cooling for the total facility. By leveraging the ambient temperatures in Ireland and by isolating the extraction of heat generated by the IT systems, the data centre environment can be maintained at operating temperatures without the use of mechanical / refridgerated cooling systems for over 95% of the time. Mechanical cooling systems will only be employed during periods of extreme temperatues or where there are external contaniments in the air such as smoke or dust. Mechanical cooling typically represents ~38% of the power consumed in traditional data centres.

* By leveraging the 'free-air' cooling and hot aisle isolation model described above, Microsoft has been able to avoid the use of chilled water cooling systems. Traditional data centres of this scale use ~18 million litres of water each month to assist with the cooling systems.

* The vast majority of servers deployed in this new data centre are the latest generation of systems, designed through tight collaboration between Microsoft and the hardware manufacturers to deliver the highest performance with the lowest levels of power consumption and heat generation. These systems are shipped to the data centre preinstalled into the server racks, resulting is subtantial reductions in transportation and packaging overheads.

* The IT systems (servers, storage, networking) are constantly monitored for utilization and power consumption and data gathered through this instrumentation is aggregated to provide the business with visibility to the efficiency of their systems as well as the carbon generation. All stakeholder teams from application developers to data centre operations are incented to drive for continuous improvement of operational efficiency.

Duration :

07/2009 - 12/2009

Geographical scope :

IRELAND,national

Campaigning area :

Market transformation including voluntary commitments

Project beneficiaries :

• Consumers, industry, software developers, public institutions

Energy & environmental results :

The Dublin Data Center will have an annual Power Use Effectiveness (PUE) average of 1.25, with the objective to reach 1.125 by 2012 on a scale where 1 is the optimal. As a reminder, the average in the industry is today at 2. Microsoft data centers globally are today at 1.53.



The Data Centre reduces 50% of its CO2 emmissions (air movement, cooling, lightning, electricity transformer and reductions in IT equipment.

Contact information