Mr Leong Mun Yuen addressing the audience during an industry sharing session on the Green Data Centre Innovation Challenge.

From granular sensors to high-pressure misting systems, from redesigning the motherboard to redesigning the data centre itself – these were some of the different approaches put forward by the four consortiums selected for the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore’s (IDA) Green Data Centre Innovation Challenge Call-for-Collaboration (CFC).

The CFC is aimed at uncovering innovative green ICT solutions that can help improve energy efficiency in the data centre sector. The four consortiums – led by Equinix Singapore, Toshiba Asia Pacific, ClearManage and 1-Net Singapore - were selected based on the degree of innovation and the viability, achievability and practicality of their proposals; as well as the potential improvements in energy efficiency and projected cost savings. They will pilot their proposed solutions for a year, after which they will share their findings with the rest of the industry.

At an industry sharing session on 26 April 2012, Mr Leong Mun Yuen, Chief Technology Officer of IDA, cited a Gartner study estimating that power constitutes an average of 12 per cent of a data centre’s operating costs, and that power costs are increasing by more than 20 per cent a year. This, together with the fact that Singapore’s commercial data centre space is expected to grow by 50 per cent over the next five years, has focused attention on the need to find the right technologies to lower data centres’ consumption of power.

Equinix’s “SG1 Cooling Energy Efficiency” project involves the use of granular sensor data in real-time monitoring and control systems to track temperature and air pressure within the data centre. Wireless monitoring allows sensors to be deployed where they can gather the most relevant and useful data. This, in turn, is used to automate the management of the cooling system to optimise cooling in different areas within the data centre. Another innovation in the Equinix proposal, put together with partners Synapsense and Custom Mechanical Systems, is the retrofitting of existing computer room air-con (CRAC) units with high efficiency variable-frequency drive fans which have the potential to generate about 25 per cent more cooling capacity.

1-Net’s “Entomiz Ambient Cooling System” project, developed in partnership with Envrocon, also involves retrofitting. Here, however, the approach is to incorporate a high-pressure misting system into the existing air-cooled air condition and mechanical ventilation (ACVM) system. The use of fine, high-pressure misting sprays will help cool the ambient temperature and reduce the load on the ACVM system, thus increasing cooling efficiency.

A different approach is taken by Toshiba and its partners – Nanyang Technological University’s Energy Research Institute and its School of Computer Engineering. The “Outside Air Cooling in Modular Data Centre” project attempts to make use of outside air cooling, which has not been attempted in the tropics before. There are two aspects to this proposal. The first of these is the modular data centre that is designed to isolate the hot and cold areas, enabling it to be more energy efficient. The second aspect is the use of outside air to cool the data centre if the system detects that the ambient air is cool enough to do so. This approach has been made possible in the tropics due to recent changes in cooling guidelines which allow equipment to operate in higher-temperature environments.

The fourth project selected under the Green Data Centre Innovation Challenge CFC is ClearManage’s “Data-Centre-in-the-Cloud”, which was developed in partnership with AsiaSoft and Nanyang Polytechnic. The approach is based on the principle that tight end-to-end integration within the data centre is key to greater energy efficiency. To achieve this, various components in the data centre - from the cooling systems and racks down to the server boards - are customised. For example, the motherboards are designed with inline uninterruptible power supplies to optimise energy efficiency, while the use of dessicant evaporative cooling technology together with the appropriate sensors allow systems to be cooled to the target temperature.  This energy-optimised infrastructure is then offered to customers as a virtual private data centre.