27 Apr Data Center Operators Are Fighting Against Pollution

Review the latest efforts in making it easier for data center operators to make facilities greener.

Three tech giants are providing free patents for data center operators to increase the rate at which environment-friendly technologies are adopted. Facebook, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Microsoft are offering hundreds of low-carbon options to data center operators. This initiative is being coined the Low-Carbon Patent Pledge.

Clean Energy Innovation Goals

The Low-Carbon Patent Pledge is a key component in the Clean Energy Innovation Goals. If data centers adopt this new pledge it will assist in removing about half of the CO2 emissions and reductions needed to achieve the Clean Energy Innovation Goal by 2050.

How Does Offering Patents Help Data Center Operators?

Facebook, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Microsoft are offering these royalty-free patents as a donation to carbon change and fighting against pollution. Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Chief Technologist for Sustainable Transformation, John Frey, said “The world needs radical collaboration to meet this critical moment in the climate crisis… By opening up these patents, we hope to help accelerate and encourage innovation by enabling others to build upon our work.”

The royalty-free patents offer various cooling techniques including immersion techniques, capacity management, power management, data center architectures, and the coveted Microsoft patent for the submerged data center. These companies are aiming to assist in greener data center technology adoption at a much faster rate.

Other Trends: European Data Centers Facing Greenhouse Gas Bans

As summer creeps closer, data center operators will have to be more cautious as they face new greenhouse gas bans in regard to cooling systems. “Refrigerants such as fluorinated hydrocarbons (HFCs) with a high global warming potential (GWP) can no longer be used in cooling systems from this year, thanks to the European regulation EU 517/2014.”

In 2015, the European Union passed a regulation to greatly reduce and phase out HFCs. The first steps of reducing this included raising the prices of these types of cooling agents. By the beginning of 2020, the EU has banned any new production of HFCs and imposed transitional legislation to provide further assistance in reducing these emissions. The covid-19 pandemic has also created a backlog of data center maintenance work putting more pressure on data center operators. Some operators are embracing the greener ways to run facilities. Greener forms include solar-powered, submerged, wind-powered, and free cooling.

It is essential to protect our planet and do our effort in the technology sector. If your team is interested in accessing pertinent location-based telecom data, contact the experts at GeoTel.