According to the company, the energy savings compared to a conventional data center has increased from 40 to 50 percent — highlighting substantial progress towards its energy savings rate of 80 percent.
"Actually, our energy savings rate is already more than 50 percent," EvoSwitch Managing Director Eric Boonstra said. "This is due to the fact that the PUE of our data center continuously has been slightly below 1.5 for some time now. The extra savings is primarily due to further investments in green technology and in control systems. The expansion due to customer growth in 2009 was another reason for the reduced PUE."
Boonstra says that the number 1.5 indicates that operations at EvoSwitch are quite energy-efficient, although the company still has not achieved its energy-saving goal.
"We started with a PUE of 1.8 in early 2007. One year ago, the PUE was 1.6. We now have a PUE of 1.5, but we will continue to invest in further energy savings," Boonstra said. "This is critical to EvoSwitch and to our customers, since the negative impact on the environment caused by the data center sector should be kept to an absolute minimum. In addition, energy prices will rise, and we want to be able to keep our energy bills, and those of our customers, at an affordable level."
EvoSwitch uses much of its energy savings to finance its investments in green technologies.
"Building a green data center is more expensive than building a conventional data center, for the simple reason that green technology costs more than conventional equipment," Boonstra said. "But we do not pass on these extra costs to our customers. And that also applies to the green power we use and our investments in CO2 compensation in collaboration with the Climate Neutral Group."
"For customers, investments in green technologies are the ultimate insurance against high energy bills in the near future," says Boonstra. "This keeps their energy bills manageable, predictable and affordable. This is a key criterion, especially for major IT infrastructures."
The environmentally sound design of the EvoSwitch data center is based on advice provided by TNO and on in-house innovation by a dedicated design team. This resulted in an energy-efficient design when the data center opened in April 2007, using technologies such as Free Cooling (cooling by using the outdoor temperature), Cold Corridors (separation of hot and cold airflows), and UPS technology with Delta Conversion.
The EvoSwitch R&D team is currently working on a cooling design that will further improve the PUE.
"This will result in further reduction of capital expenses and operational expenses, which will substantially benefit the environment as well as EvoSwitch customers," Boonstra concluded. "With this new design, we aim to achieve a PUE of 1.2."