Barclays has started an 11-month project to slash
itscarbon footprintby building an
energy-efficient datacentre facility using Dynamic Smart Cooling
technology from HP.
The project is part of the bank's five-year programme to reduce
CO2 emissions by 20% per employee and cut the ratio of CO2 consumed
against profit from 16.6 tonnes per million pounds of income down
to 12.6 tonnes.
The smart cooling technology, which is being fitted in a new
Barclays datacentre in Gloucestershire, would allow the bank to
control cooling and so reduce electricity consumption. It will play
a major part in helping Barclays achieve its carbon reduction
target.
HP Dynamic Smart Cooling technology is designed to actively
manage a
datacentre's air-conditioning to deliver the right amount of
cooling where it is needed.
Elaine Heyworth, head of environmental management for the
global, retail and commercial banking division at Barclays, said,
"The HP design uses two heat sensors on each server rack in the
datacentre to focus cooling to where it is needed." Rather than
cooling the whole datacentre, she said, "Smart Cooling allows us to
reduce the amount of power we use to cool the equipment."
The system uses control software fed by continuous, real-time
air-temperature measurements from the network of sensors throughout
the Barclays datacentre to continuously monitor and adjust cooling
equipment based on demand from the servers and storage devices.
As the air conditioners are used more efficiently Barclays is
expecting to reduce its consumption significantly. "We expect to
save 7,000 tonnes of CO2 per year,"
Heyworth said. Automatic temperature monitoring through Dynamic
Smart Sensor should also enable the Barclays datacentre to respond
faster to changes in temperature.
HP said this would put less strain on the chillers that cool the
air around the datacentre.