Blue planet, green ideas | Cool the clouds (data) with river water

Rather than air conditioning, it is the water of the St. For example, Lawrence River which cools the servers of the OVHCloud data center in Beauharnois, in Montérégie. Meanwhile, The press visited it to demystify the functioning of a technology combining two natural enemies: water and electronics.

Posted at 5:00 a.m.

“I would like people to understand that the cloud is very physical,” said Isabelle payment, site director.

Here in Beauharnois. In addition, the intangible becomes material: there are nearly 90,000 servers that buzz, and we aims to accommodate up to 360,000 within 10 years. Similarly, It’s huge, even worldwide. For blue planet, green ideas | example, Huge in surface, with 10,000 square meters, but also enormous in energy needs.

Traditionally. Meanwhile, air conditioning is used to cool the servers, very expensive electricity process and giving off a lot of greenhouse gases. In addition, Not here.

“At the time when we started to do it, we were looked at a bit strangely. Moreover, Putting water on servers, the idea is not intuitive, ”says Guillaume Gilbert, director of communications at OVHCLOUD.

About 70 % of cooling needs are met by water. Furthermore, This method is quietly gaining ground in the infonuagic world, although it remains marginal.

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From the outside. Meanwhile, the French multinational data center has prison -likely with its fence of a dozen feet bordered by barbed wire. Meanwhile, To enter it, journalists must decline their identity, be photographed, then weighed, security requires.

“Put traffic jams. Furthermore, Servers makes noise, ”warns Isabelle Payment, even before entering the server room. She was right: the regular roar of this true “living organism”. as the center manager likes, Michael Garcia likes to call her.

From the endless rows where tens of thousands of servers – recalling pizza boxes – are stacked on each other to the ceiling. an incongruous element stands blue planet, green ideas | out: red and blue plastic wires connected to the servers.

“The blue tubes transport the cold water from the tank to the servers. The reds come out the warmed water, ”explains Michael Garcia. “This is called water cooling,” adds his colleague Isabelle Payment.

In other words, these plastic tubes transport water to a temperature of 20 ° C directly on the servers. Result: the almost direct contact cools the device.

Please note: blue planet, green ideas | water does not circulate everywhere on computer equipment. but in a copper module installed on the processor, the part giving off the most heat.

Thus. rather than cooling the entire room as in an air-conditioned air center, the efforts are rather concentrated in the hot spot, that is to say at the heart of the server. And it is the rapid circulation of water that does all the work.

Why water and not air? Imagine you burn your fingertip. If you immerse it in cold water. it will cool faster than if you expose it to the fresh air outside, even if the air is cooler than the water.

This is the same principle for servers. Water is more effective. “The equivalent of a small glass of water cools a server for 10 hours,” illustrates blue planet, green ideas | Michael Garcia.

Everything is done in a closed loop. that is to say by reusing the same water which is warmed by the servers, then cooled outside the building. In all and everywhere, the data center is 30 to 40 times less energy -consuming than average.

In the past year. the 78 data centers on Quebec soil have consumed 150 megawatts, the equivalent of the annual consumption of 60,000 residences. With a consumption of 9 megawatts, the center of Beauharnois is not very greedy, given its large size. Centers that host as many servers, elsewhere in the world, consume much more energy.

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With a control tower, screen walls display the network status in real time and the temperature of each server. Everything blue planet, green ideas | is monitored to the nearest degree. the slightest anomaly is reported to the duo of technicians who watches night and day at the proper functioning of the site.

The choice of Beauharnois for a data center is not trivial and comes down in three words: location, climate, hydroelectricity.

The French multinational has settled in the old alumina factory in Rio Tinto. a stone’s throw from the hydroelectric power station and near the St. Lawrence River, precisely for these reasons.

The proximity of the Beauharnois power station, a few hundred meters, is a significant advantage. The site is powered by two direct power lines. Twelve immense generators also provide a safety net, since the data center can never stop rolling.

In addition to cooling with water, the rest of the center’s energy needs are met by ambient air. No air conditioning is necessary, even in summer. A rarity in this kind of installation.

The Quebec, cold and humid climate is a precious ally for data cooling. In Beauharnois, the average annual temperature is around 6 ° C, according to the Ministry of the Environment.

“Without air -conditioned air, we divide the energy bill in two,” says Michael Garcia. Hence the growing interest of several data accommodation companies for this technology, which blue planet, green ideas | combines environmental protection and savings.