Start Campus, a company focused on designing, building and operating a new generation of sustainable data centers, is set to present an innovative case study at the 2024 Open Compute Project (OCP) Global Summit on October 16, 2024. Written in collaboration with the Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and Alfa Laval, both of which will participate in the presentation, the case study highlights Start Campus’ SINES DC project and the advancements made in sustainable data center cooling systems.
The case study is featured in a research paper by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (“IEEE”) titled, Advancing Sustainability in Data Centers: Evaluation of Hybrid Air/Liquid Cooling Schemes for IT payload using Sea Water. Promising to revolutionize the industry’s energy efficiency and sustainability practices, the case study details Start Campus’ ability to deploy high-density hybrid air and liquid cooling deployments at SINES DC while harnessing the cooling power of the ocean, reducing the overall energy footprint and setting a standard for future data centers.
As the demand for cloud computing, AI, and HPC continues to grow, data centers face increasing energy demands and power constraints. With cooling accounting for up to 40% of a data center’s energy consumption, the need for innovative solutions is critical. The case study evaluates the performance of air-only and hybrid air/water cooling systems using seawater, based on Start Campus’ SINES DC facility, which is now the largest data center development in Europe. Key features of the SINES DC project include:
- Total IT capacity of 1.2 GW
- Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.1
- 100% renewable energy usage
- Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE) of 0.0
- Projected investment of €8.5 billion
The joint presentation session detailing these findings will take place on Wednesday, October 16, from 10:40 am to 10:55 am in the JetCool Pavilion on the Expo Hall Stage. Speakers will include Denis Browne, Head of R&D, Start Campus; Imran Latif, Scientific Data and Computing Center Operations Officer, Brookhaven National Laboratory; Gemma Reeves, Business Development Manager Data Centers, Alfa Laval; and Bernie Malouin, CEO, JetCool. The presentation will center on the carbon and flow savings made possible by Start Campus’ unique design, which leverages ocean water and other technologies to enable innovative liquid cooling deployments at SINES DC.
This research and the SINES DC project represent significant advancements in data center sustainability. By improving energy efficiency and reducing CO2 emissions without depleting natural resources, Start Campus is setting new standards for the industry. As the data center industry continues to evolve, innovations like these will play a crucial role in shaping the future of sustainable IT infrastructure.
