Effective immediately, Equinix will begin to create a multi-year global roadmap for thermal operations in its data centres with the aim of achieving significantly more efficient cooling and decreasing carbon impacts.
In the long term this framework is expected to help Equinix customers reduce the Scope 3 carbon emissions associated with their data centre operations as supply chain.
“Our cooling systems account for approximately 25% of our total energy usage globally,” said Raouf Abdel, executive vice president of global operations at Equinix.
“With this new initiative, we can intelligently adjust the thermostat in our data centres in the same way that consumers do in their homes. Once rolled out across our current global data centre footprint, we anticipate energy efficiency improvements of as much as 10% in various locations.”
As a part of this initiative, Equinix expects to operate its facilities closer to 27°C (80°F), aligning operating limits across its global data centre portfolio with the globally accepted boundaries of the A1A standards from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE).
“Data centres are critical to our daily lives, housing the equipment and interconnecting the businesses that fuel our digital lives – from online shopping to sending emails to streaming movies and video calls,” said Jon Lin, executive vice president and general manager, data centre services at Equinix.
“As more than 10,000 businesses globally rely on Equinix’s digital infrastructure, it plays a critical role in their supply chains. This initiative, once deployed, has the potential to significantly benefit these businesses as they seek to reduce the Scope 3 carbon emissions in their supply chain to meet their overall climate targets. It marks an important step in our comprehensive sustainability program and our climate-neutral commitment.”
