Michiel Eielts, managing director of Equinix Benelux, says that if you want to achieve full energy efficiency in the data center you have to go beyond Power Usage Effectiveness and look at re-engineering everything. “It is the little steps that count,” he says. With Equinix’s AM3 data center in Science Park, Amsterdam, which opened in late 2012, one key technology contributed to the facility’s green credentials on a large scale.

Making use of an aquifer 185 meters below the site, Equinix designed a hybrid cooling system, leveraging Jaeggi cooling towers and an Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage System for the wells that can contain water at 10°C all year round. The system can either cool using the wells or supply free-air cooling as and when fit, hence delivering efficient cooling throughout the year.

Equinix really broke its traditional mould in terms of cooling for AM3. “The end result  is a simpler, cleaner design on the mechanical side, with fewer elements. It is also much quieter on the operations side. The Jaeggi cooling towers are the only mechanical elements you see in this build,” Eielts says.

Jaeggi’s hybrid cooling towers provide free cooling when temperatures are below 18°C, but when temperatures rise they use cold water from the wells, requiring only 1kW for every 100kW of cooling capacity. Equinix raised the water temperature for all water circuits so the cooling system throughout the facility could work with higher water temperatures – 30% above what is used by traditional cooling systems. In doing this, it removed any need for a mechanical cooling process.

The wells can be “recharged” when free cooling is used by the towers when the climate is cold. The combination of the wells and cooling towers also allows for district heating to be provided for nearby buildings.

Inside Equinix' AM3

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