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72 E L EC TR I C AL CONNEC T I ON
W I N T E R 20 1 6
DATA ON THE ROCKS
T
o those readers of
Electrical
Connection
who have spent
their lives installing data centre
infrastructure it will come as no surprise
that approximately 3% of all the world’s
electricity consumption is used to power
and cool these facilities.
The fact is, a large scale data centre
can draw the same amount of power as a
medium sized city.
As a result, companies are going to
extraordinary lengths to experiment
with new ways of cooling data centres,
to circumvent paying for air conditioning
units operating on a 24/7 basis.
Microsoft, for one, recently created
a prototype data centre housed inside
a giant airtight tank that was lowered
to the cold ocean floor, dramatically
reducing the need for powered
cooling systems.
Most recently, Swedish company
Rockan opened a data centre that uses the
cold Swedish air and natural rock cooling
to lower operating costs. These efforts
have almost eliminated the need for an
electrically powered cooling system.
Built in a former military facility, the
Rockan data centre is arguably the most
secure data centre in the world.
Since the company started business
in 2012 the demand from its clients
for added security has grown
exponentially, as has the need for more
and more servers.
When an 8,000m² site in the rock
caverns of the mountainous Swedish
municipality of Atvidaberg became
available Rockan saw the potential for
huge power savings as well as greater
data security.
The centre was constructed by drilling
into the granite mountains – material
so strong that it could survive a direct
nuclear strike and still carry on data
processing in a nuclear environment.
Rockan chief executive Frederik Vyncke
says the company estimates of the cost
for the military to build the facility initially
would have been in the vicinity of EUR150
million ($A228.8 million); around 100
times more than Rockan’s purchase price.
After building the facility in the late
THE COST OF COOLING A LARGE
SCALE DATA CENTRE CAN RUN
INTO THE THOUSANDS OF
DOLLARS PER YEAR. TO COMBAT
THIS, ONE SWEDISH DATA
STORAGE COMPANY IS SIMPLY
USING ROCKS.
JOE YOUNG
REPORTS.
Swedish company Rockan opened a data centre that uses the cold Swedish air and natural rock cooling to lower operating costs.
SHOWCASE