On a cold, a huge cave under Orthodox Christian cathedral, an energy firm in Helsinki is developing a data center expected to become the greenest on the planet.
The excess temperature of the hundreds of computers to be located under the Uspensky Cathedral will be captured and channeled to the heating network of the city, a system of pipes heated with warm water for keeping the houses in the Finnish capital.
"It is perfectly feasible that a considerable proportion of the heating in the capital may come from the thermal energy generated by computer enclosures," said Juha Sipila, project manager of Helsingin Energia.
Finland and other northern European countries are using their networks fed water as a conduit for renewable energy sources and capture waste to heat water that is pumped through the system.
With the start of activities in January, the new data center for computer services firm Academica is a way of addressing environmental concerns about the expansion of the Internet as a central repository of data and processes of the world, known as "computer in cloud. "
Companies seeking to cut costs and long-term large-scale computing are focusing on data centers, which represent up to 30 percent of the energy costs of many corporations.
Data centers like those in Google and used about 1 percent of the world's energy, and energy demand is growing rapidly with the trend towards outsourcing of computations.
One major problem is that in a typical data center only 40 to 45 percent of the energy used for the computations is proper, the rest is mostly used in the cooling of the servers.
"It's a pressing issue for vendors of information technology, it is estimated that increased energy costs to power and cool servers is outstripping demand servers," said Steven Nathasingh, CEO of research firm växa Inc.
"But the computer companies will not solve the challenge on their own and must create new partnerships with energy management expertise and service companies and others," he said.
The carbon dioxide emissions from data centers are around one third the number reported by airlines, but are growing 10 percent annually and now approach the level of entire countries, like Argentina or Holland.
Energy saving
In addition to providing heating for households in the Finnish capital, the new fair use computer Uspenski half the energy of a typical data center, Sipila said.
Its contribution to the district heating network will be comparable to a wind turbine, or enough to heat 500 homes big domestic.
"The Green is a great selling point, but equally important is the cost savings," said Pietari päivänä, commercial director of Academica.
When the center is expanded as planned, will reduce 375,000 euros (561,000 dollars) a year of the annual energy bill of the company. Academica revenues in 2008 were 15 million.
"It's a win-win situation. We are offering the customer because we can use cheap cooling the excess heat," he said.
The location of the center in the bowels of the cathedral has an additional benefit: safety.
The firm occupies an old bomb shelters carved into the rock by the fire brigade in the Second World War as a haven for city officials of Russian air strikes.
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