The world’s first climate positive data center is now being built in the city of Falun, Sweden. Dubbed “EcoDataCenter” the facility will also be one of the safest in the world,featuring high standards of security. The initiator of EcoDataCenter is the energy company Falu Energi & Vatten in collaboration with the entrepreneurial company EcoDC AB. Technology for securing the system’s energy efficiency are being supplied by Schneider Electric.
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is emerging as a new target area for energy efficient solutions. The ICT sector alone uses as much as 10% of the worldwide energy output. This reflects the growing cost of powering data centers, the global cloud backbone. A single data center can easily use more electricity than a mid-sized town – a large proportion of this energy is never used, but simply released as atmospheric heat, contributing to global carbon emissions and local warming.

 

With more than three million data centers globally, several reports estimate the combined carbon dioxide emissions from these datacenters may outpace the emissions from the entire airline industry in only five years.

 

This is also a major cost-driver, requiring a new way of thinking, says Børge Granli, one of the founders of EcoDC AB.

 

Sweden has proven to be an excellent and safe location for data centers due to its cold climate, reliable and renewable energy sources, political stability and lack of natural disasters. The Cushman & Wakefield and Hurleypalmerflatt Data Centre Risk Index ranks Sweden as the third safest location for data centers in the world, after the United States and United Kingdom.

“Climate positive”
EcoDataCenter will be connected to the local energy system, which in 2013 was acclaimed by Global District Energy Climate Award 2013 in New York as one of the world’s best. The excess heat from the servers and equipment will warm the buildings in Falun through the district heating system. In the summer time, excess steam from the local electricity plant will run the machines, cooling the data center.

 

This relationship between the data center and the district heating system will ensure that the emissions are reduced to the extent that EcoDataCenter will have a negative carbon dioxide footprint over the course of a single year. “We are connecting the data center to an already sustainable energy system and can make use of all the energy. Therefore, we are building the very first climate positive data center in the world,” says Bengt Gustafsson, CEO of Falu Energi & Vatten.

 

The electricity powering the data center comes solely from renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and water power as well as secondary biofuels.