The life cycle assessment of a UK data centre

Whitehead, Beth; Shah, Amip

doi:10.1007/s11367-014-0838-7

Cited by 40 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 16 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Whitehead et al 6 found that for a UK data centre using direct air free cooling, electricity production dominates the total life cycle impact and the operational phase is more significant than the embodied phase. The second most significant impact derives from the disposal of metal refining waste products during the manufacture of IT components and electricity distribution networks.…”

Section: Data Centre Life Cycle Impactmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Characterisation factors (contained within a characterisation method) are then applied, based on their relative contribution to one of a number of damage categories; this converts a result to the common unit of the category indicator. The Eco-indicator 99 characterisation method, used in the Whitehead et al 6 study, contains three damage categories: human health, ecosystem quality and resources. Eco-indicator 99 uses three different perspectives to account for uncertainty in their damage models, with respect to which environmental effects should and should not be included: egalitarian, hierarchist and individualist.…”

Section: Data Centre Life Cycle Impactmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Life cycle assessment (LCA) takes a holistic approach to analysis of environmental impact, from the point of material extraction to end of life, as shown in Figure 1. LCAs of data centres have been undertaken 5,6 which identify that the key areas of importance are energy consumption during the in-use phase (related to energy efficiency), the embodied impact of materials in the data centre (including IT equipment and M&E services) and the impact of the source energy (e.g. renewable or fossil fuel based) for all phases, i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Data centre sustainability – Beyond energy efficiency

Flucker

Tozer

Whitehead

2018

Building Services Engineering Research and Technology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Data centres are large energy consumers, which have become more energy efficient in recent years due to increased awareness of opportunities, increasing energy costs and corporate social responsibility pressures. A lifecycle assessment approach identifies two other significant areas of impact: the embodied impact of IT equipment and mechanical and electrical plant, and the electricity source used in operational and embodied processes. Many data centre operators publicise their energy efficiency, some also report on their carbon footprint. However, there is a need for simple tools in order to help operators better understand and quantify the embodied impact and inform green procurement. Focussing purely on energy efficiency may cause a burden shift, e.g. by replacing equipment with more efficient equipment but increasing the embodied impact. The total environmental impact could remain the same/increase, but with the perception of a ‘greener’ data centre. Although currently there is limited data available for data centre life cycle assessments and the process is resource intensive, research has identified which factors significantly impact a facility’s environmental impact. This knowledge should be used in the design process and throughout the data centre lifecycle to minimise data centre environmental impact. Practical application: As the data centre industry continues to grow and its sustainability receives closer scrutiny, it is important to increase awareness of where its highest environment impacts lie and analyse the factors which influence this. This can help inform policy and decision-making to support the design and operation of data centres which are truly more sustainable. It is important that this research is not just theoretical but can translate into practical actions which can be implemented in a cost-effective manner for the benefit of everyone. The current focus in industry has been energy consumption and energy efficiency; many practices which were considered innovative a few years ago have now become standard best practice. It is time to examine which other areas should be prioritised for improvement.

show abstract

Section: Data Centre Life Cycle Impactmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Data Centre Life Cycle Impactmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Data centre sustainability – Beyond energy efficiency

Flucker

Tozer

Whitehead

2018

Building Services Engineering Research and Technology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These large power consumptions lead to high direct operating costs [5,6]. Secondly, there are indirect costs associated to the life cycle of equipment as a result of replacements due to degradation and obsolescence in either computing or support systems [7]. Thirdly, there are substantial environmental-related impacts such as the greenhouse gases emitted over the HPCC's entire life cycle: from the carbon footprint of the manufacturing process to that associated with the generation of the large amount of electricity consumed during operation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eco-Efficient Resource Management in HPC Clusters through Computer Intelligence Techniques

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

High Performance Computing Clusters (HPCCs) are common platforms for solving both up-to-date challenges and high-dimensional problems faced by IT service providers. Nonetheless, the use of HPCCs carries a substantial and growing economic and environmental impact, owing to the large amount of energy they need to operate. In this paper, a two-stage holistic optimisation mechanism is proposed to manage HPCCs in an eco-efficiently manner. The first stage logically optimises the resources of the HPCC through reactive and proactive strategies, while the second stage optimises hardware allocation by leveraging a genetic fuzzy system tailored to the underlying equipment. The model finds optimal trade-offs among quality of service, direct/indirect operating costs, and environmental impact, through multiobjective evolutionary algorithms meeting the preferences of the administrator. Experimentation was done using both actual workloads from the Scientific Modelling Cluster of the University of Oviedo and synthetically-generated workloads, showing statistical evidence supporting the adoption of the new mechanism.

show abstract

“…In 2001, 8% of humanity was online, but by 2013, 38% were [1]. Not only is the Internet being adopted quickly, but global data traffic is rising at an exponential rate: 100 gigabytes/second (GB/s) in 2002, centres, which broadly indicate that electricity production forms the major part of DC impacts [15,16]. A series of studies also consider the cooling technologies applied and their impacts [17][18][19].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Water Footprint of Data Centers

2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:The internet and associated Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) are diffusing at an astounding pace. As data centers (DCs) proliferate to accommodate this rising demand, their environmental impacts grow too. While the energy efficiency of DCs has been researched extensively, their water footprint (WF) has so far received little to no attention. This article conducts a preliminary WF accounting for cooling and energy consumption in DCs. The WF of DCs is estimated to be between 1047 and 151,061 m 3 /TJ. Outbound DC data traffic generates a WF of 1-205 liters per gigabyte (roughly equal to the WF of 1 kg of tomatos at the higher end). It is found that, typically, energy consumption constitues by far the greatest share of DC WF, but the level of uncertainty associated with the WF of different energy sources used by DCs makes a comprehensive assessment of DCs' water use efficiency very challenging. Much better understanding of DC WF is urgently needed if a meaningful evaluation of this rapidly spreading service technology is to be gleaned and response measures are to be put into effect.

show abstract

The life cycle assessment of a UK data centre

Cited by 40 publications

References 16 publications

Data centre sustainability – Beyond energy efficiency

Data centre sustainability – Beyond energy efficiency

Eco-Efficient Resource Management in HPC Clusters through Computer Intelligence Techniques

The Water Footprint of Data Centers

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About