In response to the exponential growth of data-center energy consumption, Danfoss decided to build data centres that will be an example for future climate-friendly designs – using the technologies to cool in a greener way, to reduce energy consumption within them, and to reuse the excess heat for other applications.
“We cool our data centres in a very energy-efficient way, and we recover and reuse the excess heat produced within the data centres. This is what we consider green digitalisation,” says Senior Vice President and CIO of Danfoss Group IT, Sune T. Baastrup.
Data centers as power plants
The technologies include chillers and heat pumps featuring Danfoss Turbocor technology that allow data centres to be cooled up to 30% more efficiently and to recover excess heat generated.
Decarbonisation of data centres starts from the cooling side. Danfoss has a wide portfolio and expertise to reduce direct and indirect CO2 emissions with lower-GWP refrigerants and energy effective solutions. Danfoss technologies are also optimised for operating conditions at higher temperatures to enable less need for cooling, thus naturally reducing the power consumption used for cooling.
In addition, Danfoss has innovative solutions for heat recovery. Excess heat is generated by server equipment as part of data centre operation and is discharged into the atmosphere. Using this excess heat in heating applications, instead of allowing it to escape, represents a massive opportunity for Danfoss to provide an environmentally friendly solution that will help the company reach complete global decarbonisation by 2030.
The Danfoss decarbonisation
An example of this concept is Danfoss headquarters in Nordborg, Denmark. In 2015, it was heated 100% by fossil fuel. In 2022, it will be CO2 neutral. And, in 2024, reused excess heat from Danfoss data centres will provide 25% of the overall heat supply for the 250,000 square meter of factories and offices.
Location plays a key factor to optimally utilise excess heat. The data centre will be near the location of data use and where the local area can benefit from the excess heat. This provides the opportunity to use oil-free heat-pump systems to transform the data centre into a heat source. The excess heat can then be distributed to a local neighborhood, helping to reduce the data-centre energy costs, and lowering greenhouse-gas emissions.
Danfoss is on a digital transformation journey, consolidating 20 global data centres and 135 server rooms into a handful of data centres, which will all be built using Danfoss green technologies.
