Mauritius’ Sea Water Cooled Data Centre: Not Just a Drop in the Ocean?

Industry analysts gauge that somewhere between 1.5 and 2 percent of allemissions come from the planet’s data centres and global third party data centre demand is growing by something like 24 percent a year according to Steve Wallage of UK-based Broad Group, also speaking in Mauritius.

“Companies and governments who do not want to shoulder the costs, pressures and risks of building their own data centres are looking for locations like Mauritius with its geo-political stability as a potential location for sustainable data warehousing with attractive PUE,” said Wallage.

Cooler countries have lower PUE

Whether any of the developments happening in Mauritius will teach us how to improve PUE and other efficiencies in Europe and the West is open to question. Leading data centres in the UK can enjoy free air-cooling for over half the year due to our comparatively low temperatures – something used by oil exploration company PGS in its 1.2 PUE data centre.

Despite this, the UK still wastes somewhere close to 8 percent of our total power moving it from power stations in the north down to the consumption hungry south.

“As the pressure mounts to find environmental solutions to difficult energy consumption issues, the data centre industry must come up with innovative solutions to lead the way. It certainly looks as if this latest development in Mauritius is fulfilling that brief,” said Jeff Thomas, CEO of UK-based Ark Continuity.

“Where off shore isn’t possible, we must use other attributes of the landscape. For example, at Ark’s Spring Park campus in Wiltshire, ground free cooling is available by tapping into the cool subterranean environment and this will help us deliver a design PUE of less than 1.2.”

If PUE itself derives in some part from latitude then, it is also worth considering that designing a data centre specifically for low PUE inherently builds in a lower margin of reliability.

Green is just a hook

“I don’t believe that the sea water air conditioning element of the Mauritian project is the key to success here, it’s just a green hook,” said Dr Ian F Bitterlin, author for Data Center Dynamics and chief technical officer for Prism Power, also speaking at the Mauritius conferences last week. “The success with come from the country’s new cable connectivity, political will and social stability. Their location between Africa and India is also key.”

“Mauritius has an aggressive plan to go from virtually zero raised floor space to a big operation over five years. To do that they will need 75MW of new power generation and that is assuming that the SWAC project goes ahead, if not they will need 100MW. The current generation is dominated by oil and coal, so there’s a high carbon footprint. Ideally, they need to power with gas. Will it work? Probably, but not with less than a PUE of 1.35 because of the energy needed to drag up the cold water.”

So as Mauritius enlists foreign consultancy expertise and draws upon its own not insubstantial technology workforce, the country appears to be taking a considered yet quietly self-confident approach to its new IT infrastructure.

Whether it uses sea water air-conditioning as a genuinely sustainable route to greener power or whether it is simply an eco-aware hook, Mauritius should be lauded for its determination to make the best of what the nation has in terms of natural resources, including those housed within in its ocean periphery.