The European Commission has asked the IT industry for faster, more decisive action on the issue of raising data center temperatures to enable more free air cooling. The request comes in an effort to increase the energy efficiency of data centers as part of an ongoing implementation process of the “EU Code for Conduct for Data Centres.”
Paolo Bertoldi, directorate-general of the European Commission’s Joint Research Center (JRC), recently discussed free cooling at The Green Grid EMEA Forum in Belgium.
“We want to increase free cooling, and we have a lot of data showing that some data centers are running higher temperatures, and their operations are reliable.”
However, Bertoldi added, there are still a large amount of data centers with a low cooling set point and narrow humidity control that rely on power-hungry mechanical chillers.
A recent report published by data center efficiency advocate The Green Grid states that the current beliefs regarding data center equipment’s tolerance to heat and humidity are based on outdated practices dating back to the 1950s. Though some companies, such as Dell and Intel, have been advising their customers to increase data center temperatures and adopt more “eco-friendly” forms of cooling for several years, the majority of data centers have yet to make the adjustments.
According to Steve Strutt, IBM’s CTO of Cloud Computing for the UK and Ireland, the reluctance to change is not just about the difference in equipment operating temperatures.
“It’s actually about users adopting it, being comfortable to adopt it [and] understanding what the implications are going to be,” he said.
“Trying to communicate that to bureaucrats in the EU is not easy.”
