Want to know more about data centers?

Data cen­ters are the back­bone of the inter­net, stor­ing and man­ag­ing every­thing from social media and cryp­tocur­ren­cy min­ing to arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, cloud com­put­ing and stream­ing ser­vices. As these dig­i­tal ser­vices expand, the size and num­ber of data cen­ters is grow­ing rapid­ly, with many being sit­ed in rur­al areas served pri­mar­i­ly by elec­tric coop­er­a­tives. This new load brings big oppor­tu­ni­ties and major chal­lenges.

Why rur­al areas?

Com­pa­nies are choos­ing rur­al loca­tions for their data cen­ters because of cheap­er land, avail­able pow­er and pos­si­ble tax breaks.

HVAC

Con­stant cool­ing is need­ed to ensure the servers func­tion prop­er­ly.

Servers

Servers are the “brains” of the data cen­ter, run­ning appli­ca­tions and pro­cess­ing data 24/7. Each rack of servers can con­sume 10–30 kW, enough to pow­er a small home or grain mill. A large data cen­ter may have thou­sands of serv­er racks.

Infra­struc­ture

Data cen­ters often require new elec­tri­cal infra­struc­ture to accom­mo­date their pow­er needs.

Back­up pow­er

On-site gen­er­a­tors keep data cen­ters run­ning dur­ing sys­tem out­ages and can be used to cur­tail load dur­ing peaks.

Water source

Many large data cen­ters are deploy­ing evap­o­ra­tive cool­ing, which is more effi­cient than com­pres­sor-based sys­tems*.

*QTS Data Cen­ters also will use evap­o­ra­tive cool­ing. The QTS data cen­ter will rely on a closed-loop cool­ing sys­tem that min­i­mizes water use and does not con­sume water for cool­ing once oper­a­tional. This approach has saved mil­lions of gal­lons annu­al­ly com­pared to tra­di­tion­al cool­ing meth­ods.