CenturyLink has completed its chiller replacement project in one of its five UK datacenters, an improved efficiency that has a compound benefit of a drop in total kilowatt-hours (kWh) consumed and a potential cost avoidance benefit of an estimated ?400,000 in power bills over the next year. The new chillers, which make use of free air cooling, have already resulted in an improvement in the Power Usage Effectiveness (PuE) measurement.
“Traditionally, approximately one-third of energy consumed by a datacentre is related to cooling, so making sure that our datacenter infrastructure runs at peak performance is a top priority,” says Steve Weiner, senior product manager, colocation, CenturyLink. “Whilst we have a number of important ongoing tactical initiatives for efficiency, such as ensuring the cool air is delivered to where it is needed and not leaking through the raised floor or incorrectly adjusted floor grills as examples, from time to time our datacenters’ key infrastructure need a comprehensive refresh to maintain the right environment for business critical applications.”
The project has resulted in savings of more than 275,000 kWh and forms part of a continuous ongoing process dedicated to improving datacenter efficiency. A number of the existing CenturyLink UK datacenters already have this newer improved cooling technology in place, making use of existing ambient air to benefit the cooling of servers and other IT within the datacenter.
“CenturyLink has an ongoing commitment to both its customers and the environment itself, so we are proud of the results of this project and look forward to continuing to drive efficiency improvements,” concludes Weiner.
