Swedish Data Center Saves $1M a Year Using Seawater For Cooling

alphadogg writes "A data center in Sweden has cut its energy bills by a million dollars a year using seawater to cool its servers, though jellyfish are an occasional hazard. Interxion, a collocation company in the Netherlands that rents data center space in 11 countries, uses water pumped from the Baltic Sea to cool the IT equipment at its facilities in Stockholm. The energy used to cool IT equipment is one of the costliest areas of running a data center. Companies have traditionally used big, mechanical chillers, but some are turning to outside air and evaporative techniques as lower-cost alternatives."

Warm the water directly

[calzones]

So instead of warming the atmosphere, they're warming the seawater.

Cuts to the chase neatly that. Let's all of us dump our excess heat into the ocean and see how if works out better in the long haul.

No free lunch.

This has got to be more efficient

[OhANameWhatName]

Use the seawater to cool the servers directly rather than using the seawater to cool the nuclear power plant which generates the electricity to power the cooling. So it's got to be a bit of a win for the environment too right? Improved thermal efficiency is a good thing.

Nice to see a plan which is a win for the environment on top of being a money saver.