Yahoo's 'chicken coop' datacentre has impressive cooling properties

Organisations want more energy efficiency from their datacentres

Internet company Yahoo has opened an air-cooled datacentre in New York.

The building resembles a chicken coop in that it is long and narrow, with ventilation slits at the top. This helps it to benefit from the prevailing winds and use outdoor air for almost all of its cooling.

Cooling is power hungry but necessary for datacentres. The Yahoo building's design helps it achieve a power usage effectiveness (PUE) rating of 1.08, which means it compares favourably to the industry average of 1.92.

Building design is just one method considered by companies looking to create more heat efficient datacentres.

Last year, delegates at Data Centre Strategies 2009 were shown plans for a new datacentre to be built at the Mauritius Eco-Park that featured a cooling system using cold water pumped from the ocean.

The plan calls for pipes to be placed 1,000 metres below sea level, where the water temperature is about 5ºC.

The water is then pumped up around the cooling system before being returned to the ocean. The system is predicted to cut cooling costs by up to 75 per cent.

Meanwhile, the Environment Agency announced it will be one of the first customers of Capgemini’s new Merlin datacentre last month. This claims to be the greenest datacentre in the world, though its stated PUE of 1.08 matches Yahoo's latest installation.

The Environment Agency's datacentre uses both fresh air and evaporative cooling, leading to a reduction in cooling energy required of over 92 per cent compared with a conventional datacentre using chilled water.

The introduction this year of the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme has motivated UK companies to prioritise datacentre efficiency.