PUE and Location

Location

A data centre’s location can markedly affect PUE. As a major component of the infrastructure cost is consumed in cooling, the ability to use the environment to reduce these costs will affect the amount of power needed by a data centre.

A data centre located in a cool climate will have a considerable energy efficiency advantage over a data centre in a warm climate that is similarly configured for occupancy, workload and technology maturity.

In cooler climates, data centres may take advantage of passive methods, such as free-air cooling and heat exchange to dissipate the generated heat. These practices can vastly reduce, if not eliminate, the cost of running cooling equipment for at least part of the year. In warmer months and climates the external temperature may not allow this, so the energy consumed remains high.

In this scenario, where both data centres are similar, except for location, the PUE of the data centre in the cooler climate will always be lower as the TFP consumed is reduced through a lower cooling load.

The following maps are provided courtesy of The Green Grid and provide an insight into the potential for the use of air cooling for data centres. These maps are provided as an indicator only and should be used only as a starting reference point and full research on your local area should be undertaken before any consideration of the use of free air cooling is considered.