Energy efficiency for data avalanche

Few who stand in the Uspenski Cathedral in Helsinki are aware of the banks of computer servers humming quietly in a cavern beneath their feet. The information technology service company Academica owns this unique underground data center, which it says is the most energy efficient in the world. Baltic sea water and heat exchangers keep the servers cool and help this data center use 80 percent less energy for cooling than centers that rely on traditional cooling methods. Server heat is fed into the municipal heating network, providing enough warmth for 500 homes in a city where winter temperatures routinely dip to minus 20°C. ABB power distribution units (PDUs) manage the server‘s energy consumption and improve the reliability of the data center‘s electrical distribution. Energy efficiency is a huge issue for data centers, which are growing in number and size every year to keep up with growth in online services and manage the Internet‘s insatiable appetite for data. ABB’s energy efficiency offering includes power management technology, motors and drives for ventilation and air conditioning systems, as well as an advanced data center infrastructure management (DCIM) solution. ABB recently acquired a stake in Power Assure, a developer of power management and software for data centers, whose technology can be integrated with ABB’s DCIM to enable the data center operator to control, monitor, manage and optimize the ecosystem and energy efficiency. pb

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Efficiency for water conservation plant

The water conservation plant in Visalia, California, USA, is undergoing a major plant upgrade, part of which includes improving its digester performance, generating more biogas, and converting the gas to electricity onsite. Siemens Industry Automation Division’s Crown sludge disintegration system is expected to enhance anaerobic digester performance to increase biogas production by 15 to 20 percent. This will result in lower plant operating and power costs from beneficial reuse of biogas and reduced solids disposal. The system is expected to become operational in the spring of 2012. The Crown system from Siemens Water Technologies, a business unit of Siemens Industry Automation Division, works by pre-conditioning biosolids prior to digestion through homogenization and hydrolysis of the bacterial cells. The process helps to improve the degradability of the biosolids in the digesters and also helps to minimize digester foaming caused by filamentous microorganisms. The system will be designed to treat all of the secondary sludge from Visalia’s 68 Million litres treatment plant and can also be expanded to handle additional future loadings. The system will be skid-mounted and delivered to the site pre-piped and pre-wired, ready for connection to onsite utilities. pb

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(Foto: Siemens)