SINGAPORE, 13 OCTOBER 2008 - T-Systems Singapore says it will save S$10 million in energy costs over 10 years with its recently opened green data centre in Singapore.
Occupying some 30,000 square feet, T-Systems’ third data centre in the nation—touted as energy-efficient and state-of-the-art “green”—was built at a cost of $15 million three months ago.
According to Thomas Jakob, CEO, T-Systems Singapore and Malaysia, the expected S$10 million in energy savings (or more if energy prices keep going up) is relative to conventional ways of building a data centre.
“For example, using water cooling instead of gas,” he says. “We also installed modularity in our UPS (uninterruptible power supply) system as well.”
Water Cooler
To reduce the energy needed for cooling the data centre, T-Systems installed advanced power supply units that emit less heat and other pollutants than traditional units. In addition, the water-based CRAC (Computer Room Air Conditioning) units are designed to keep the servers cool rather than the data centre itself.
“Apart from saving significant amounts of power and reducing the carbon footprint of the facility, this also eliminates the need for dangerous refrigerants such as R22 gas that damage the environment,” said Jakob.
Modular UPS
Another important component of the green data centre is the UPS T-Systems uses.
“By using a three-phase transformerless UPS, we have tremendously reduced the raw material content involved in manufacturing the UPS, saving a lot of resources such as iron and copper,” said Jakob. “The UPS also has greater efficiency and therefore emits very little heat and other pollutants into the environment.”
In the Factory Acceptance Test (FAT), the UPS from Newave achieved high efficiency at partial loads of around 94 percent efficiency at 100 to 70 percent loads, 93 percent efficiency at 50 percent loads, and 91 percent efficiency at 25 percent loads.
“With such results, we are assured that the UPS uses the least amount of raw power needed, and a very efficient power to footprint ratio,” said Jakob.
The benefits T-Systems are experiencing has encouraged it to continue on the green data centre track, and the company fully expects to replace its older centres with more eco-friendly ones, beginning as soon as within the next 12 months.
“We were pleasantly surprised at the expected savings and with energy costs increasing, plan to move our older data centres to new sites.”
