British data centres unconcerned about drought risks
Data centres in the UK view risks to water supply as minimal despite concern over the possible impact of drought on the industry, the House of Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee has heard.
Steven Campbell-Ferguson, global product design lead at NTT Data Centres, which has facilities in Dagenham, Hemel Hempstead and Slough, and who is the water working group chair for the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact, told the committee he didn’t foresee droughts impacting data centre operations. “To be blunt, the industry is confident water would always be supplied,” he said.
But this sanguine view was contradicted by the chief operating officer at environmental services company Veolia, John Abraham. “I think there is significant risk going forward,” he told the committee. Abraham said a major PFI water contract Veolia was running for the British Ministry of Defence was a prime example. “We have boreholes that we are having to take out of service by 2032 because the aquifer is in such a state because of the impact of drought.”
As a result, Veolia was working with the MoD to look at alternative sources of supply, including water reuse and grey water reuse. “We think there is huge risk, but we are used to managing these risks.” Abraham said cost was the biggest factor in alleviating the hazards posed by drought. “It is an economic problem, not a technology problem.”
Luisa Cardani, head of the data centre programme at TechUK, said drought combined with a heatwave was the riskiest scenario because much more energy and water were needed to cool a data centre. This problem could be “amplified” in areas where data centres are clustered together, she said.
Campbell-Ferguson pointed out that data centres had systems in place to cope with short-term water outages. He conceded: “If there was an outage longer than 36 or 48 hours then sites will begin to be impacted in terms of the ability to operate. In a long-term outage, a data centre dependent on evaporative cooling would need to shut down.”
Operators could make design decisions to use waterless cooling such as closed loop cooling systems or direct-to-chip cooling, the committee heard. Campbell-Ferguson explained: “Generally if we go to a water company about a connection, we will get the answer ‘no, you can’t have a connection’. That makes the decision for us: we will then have a dry cooling system.”
Such systems, which Campbell-Ferguson estimated were in use at more than 50% of the data centre sites in the UK, consume much more energy, so also potentially have an adverse impact on the environment.
Steven Campbell-Ferguson, global product design lead at NTT Data Centres, which has facilities in Dagenham, Hemel Hempstead and Slough, and who is the water working group chair for the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact, told the committee he didn’t foresee droughts impacting data centre operations. “To be blunt, the industry is confident water would always be supplied,” he said.
But this sanguine view was contradicted by the chief operating officer at environmental services company Veolia, John Abraham. “I think there is significant risk going forward,” he told the committee. Abraham said a major PFI water contract Veolia was running for the British Ministry of Defence was a prime example. “We have boreholes that we are having to take out of service by 2032 because the aquifer is in such a state because of the impact of drought.”
As a result, Veolia was working with the MoD to look at alternative sources of supply, including water reuse and grey water reuse. “We think there is huge risk, but we are used to managing these risks.” Abraham said cost was the biggest factor in alleviating the hazards posed by drought. “It is an economic problem, not a technology problem.”
Luisa Cardani, head of the data centre programme at TechUK, said drought combined with a heatwave was the riskiest scenario because much more energy and water were needed to cool a data centre. This problem could be “amplified” in areas where data centres are clustered together, she said.
Campbell-Ferguson pointed out that data centres had systems in place to cope with short-term water outages. He conceded: “If there was an outage longer than 36 or 48 hours then sites will begin to be impacted in terms of the ability to operate. In a long-term outage, a data centre dependent on evaporative cooling would need to shut down.”
Operators could make design decisions to use waterless cooling such as closed loop cooling systems or direct-to-chip cooling, the committee heard. Campbell-Ferguson explained: “Generally if we go to a water company about a connection, we will get the answer ‘no, you can’t have a connection’. That makes the decision for us: we will then have a dry cooling system.”
Such systems, which Campbell-Ferguson estimated were in use at more than 50% of the data centre sites in the UK, consume much more energy, so also potentially have an adverse impact on the environment.
