Demonstrator of the environmental aspects of “Interxion River Cooling"

Why

With a booming digital economy, infrastructure players such as data centres face many environmental challenges, starting with reducing their energy consumption.In this context, the energy efficiency of buildings is one of the main levers for reducing their environmental impact. As a leader in the data center industry in Europe, Interxion is committed to be a leading and exemplary provider of environmentally responsible data centres, making energy efficiency a top priority.

Description

Data centres are facilities housing computer servers, which are the foundation of today's digital economy. The operating conditions of these buildings require the evacuation of the heat released by the servers.

River Cooling is an innovative environmental technology that uses water-based free cooling. It uses the water from an old industrial facility to cool the data centres by heat exchange. The technology thus makes it possible to avoid the use of chillers, limiting the energy consumption of buildings and their carbon footprint.

As this technical solution is new, the aim of the challenge is to demonstrate, and if necessary, to communicate on the harmlessness of the "River Cooling" solution on the close environment, in particular on the marine environment, i.e. the water resource and the associated fauna and flora.

Example of situation

All year round, the "River Cooling" solution allows the exchange of calories and induce a controlled change in the temperature of the water used. The goal here is to develop a demonstrator based on environmental indicators with ecological monitoring, as well as a communication tool understandable by both experts and non-specialists.

Expected benefits 

This demonstrator will make it possible to be transparent regarding the environmental indicators of the River Cooling solution and its positive impacts for the territory.