Digital Realty conserving water with Liebert DSE

24th March 2016

Emerson

Jordan Mulcare

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Emerson Network Power has released a case study with Digital Realty Trust, showing how the two companies are partnering to drive environmentally sustainable innovation by saving energy and eliminating water usage in Digital Realty’s data centres. Digital Realty is utilising the Liebert DSE pumped refrigerant economiser cooling system to save more than 300m gallons of water annually in its data centres, compared to using chilled water cooling systems.

The company has deployed the technology in data centres in California, Virginia, Texas and Australia and is considering it for use in data centres in Europe.

“We recognise the importance of water conservation and releasing the results of this case study in conjunction with UN World Water Day underscores our dedication to working with our customers in designing sustainable thermal management solutions,” said John Peter Valiulis, Vice President of thermal management marketing, Emerson Network Power in North America.

The case study describes how the two companies partnered in 2015 to gain the approval of the California Energy Commission for pumped refrigerant economisation as a prescribed option for data centre cooling in California. The ruling paves the way for companies in that state to more easily deploy the energy-saving and water-saving data centre technology.

“Digital Realty’s sustainability policy is aimed at minimising the use of energy, water and raw materials in our more than 130 data centres. Working with Emerson, we have developed a data centre cooling strategy that improves our sustainability and is also economical to scale,” said Aaron Binkley, Director of sustainability, Digital Realty.

The Liebert DSE system is the first pumped refrigerant economisation system for use in data centres, and it uses no water and introduces no outside air into the data centre. For example, a 1MW data centre operating in San Francisco and using the Liebert DSE system would reduce energy usage by 16% and save 4m gallons of water annually, compared to using a chilled water system.