As water is far more efficient and
extremely efficient utilising the fjord
was a combination of we were looking
effective than air, Green Mountain
outside the site for cooling. This
to build a green data centre and an
claims that it gets 100KW of cooling
means that we have one of the world's
opportunity that came along.'
from just 1KW of power.
most efficient data centres in combi-
By creating what Green Mountain
A potential downside of its remote loca-
nation with using green energy and
likes to claim is the greenest data
tion, of course, could be the time data
using former buildings in our efforts,
centre they are hoping that other
takes to get to and from the servers
and in everything we have built, we
companies take their lead and make
that reside there. Stavanger though is
have put a green element in all the
potentially greener data centres.
the hub of the Norwegian oil industry
designs.'
'It's the beauty of competition that
and so it already has fast connections
Going
reen
G
when somebody stands out, someone
to other parts of Northern Europe and
The company's rationale for building
will want to level you or pass. We hope
to London. It claims to have only a
the data centre came from wanting to
that this spurs further development
6.5ms latency to the UK.
build the facility, but also to try and do it
within green data centres.'
As for its claim to being the greenest
in as environmentally a way as possi-
As to what is driving companies to
data centre in the world, Green
ble.
choose to use the data centre,
Mountain
CEO
K nut
Molaug
'It was a combination of both (wanting
although it has excellent green
explained this claim.
to build a data centre and wanting it to
credentials, Knut doesn't think that it is
'It is because of the low CO2 emis-
be green). We were discussing the
the main reason companies chose it.
sions, we have virtually no CO2 emis-
possibility of building a data centre in
'I think that the main driver for any busi-
sions. As you know the data centre
other places around us, because the
ness is money. The fact that we have
industry is very energy hungry and we,
owners of Green Mountain are already
green energy available, at low cost, is
in Norway, have close to 100 per cent
owners of another data centre in
the main driver for almost all of them.
renewable energy.
Stavanger, and during the process of
Everyone would like to be green, but
'We use 100 per cent hydro power
evaluating the possibility of building
they don't want to pay for it. We can
here. So that's number one. Number
another data centre using water for
offer a cheaper alternative that, in addi-
two, is that we built the system to be
cooling, this site came up for sale. So it
tion, is green.'
Green Mountain is a
good example of
making the best use
of the things you
have around you in
order to be as effi-
cient as possible.
With the data centre
industry growing
hopefully more will
take on some of the
features of Green
Mountain to reduce
their CO2 footprint.
15
Issue 72 March 2014
2014
72

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