Industry
News
Systems to Tap Data
Center Heat
District heating systems in London
and Helsinki are set to tap heat from local
data centers to fuel their systems.
Telehouse West, a new £80 million
($127 million) state-of-the-art data center
in east London, is slated to begin transforming waste heat into district energy
for the local Docklands when the facility
is completed in early 2010. The 19,000-
sq-m (205,000-sq-ft) center will mitigate
its carbon footprint by exporting 9 MW
of heat generated by racks of servers to
heated water that will be piped to more
than 1,000 nearby homes and businesses.
The move, which will save up to
1,100 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions
per year, has received approval from the
Greater London Authority. The disposal of
waste heat from cooling systems is one of
the most significant sustainability issues
associated with data storage. This will be
the first time a heat export strategy has
been introduced in the U.K. for this type
of data center facility.
A new data center in Helsinki,
Finland, built in a former World War II
bomb shelter under the city’s Uspenski
Cathedral, is already helping to heat hundreds of homes. Waste heat generated by
the data center’s electronic equipment is
captured and channeled into the district
heating network of Helsingin Energia, the
city of Helsinki’s energy provider.
The data center was developed jointly
by local technology company Academica
and Helsingin Energia. At full capacity,
the recovered heat is equal to the heating energy required by 500 single-family
houses. Helsingin Energia, which also supplies district cooling to the center, foresees opportunities for additional similar
facilities in Helsinki.
Mass Flow Meters for
Greenhouse Gas Reporting
Sierra Instruments has introduced
a line of mass flow meters certified for
greenhouse gas reporting. All Sierra
greenhouse gas meters now conform to
the new U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency rule ( 40 CFR Part 98), which mandates that as of Jan. 2, 2010, companies
in the United States that emit more than
25,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide
equivalent must report greenhouse gas
emissions.
Sierra’s greenhouse gas-certified mass
flow meters provide an economical way
to totalize ethane or natural gas burned,
enabling the calculation of CO2-equivalent
emissions. Sierra has extensive experience
in producing highly accurate and repeatable mass flow meters for methane as
well as other emissions as called out in the
EPA mandate.
To make it easier for customers
affected by the rule to find the meter they
need, the company has established a dedicated Web site ( www.sierrainstruments.
com/ greenhouse.html) featuring its greenhouse gas-certified mass flow meters.
Sierra has also trained its team of flow
application and service engineers in the
EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule so
they can answer customer questions.
The three thermal mass flow meters
on Sierra’s greenhouse gas Web page
are the Boiler-Trak™, Model 640S and
Model 780S. Sierra’s Boiler-Trak™ is a
thermal mass flow meter designed for
stationary combustion applications (
commercial boilers, kilns and heaters), which
are among the largest CO2 emitters. To
date, more than 15,000 units have been
successfully installed.
Sierra’s Greenhouse Gas-Certified
Mass Flow Meters
CNN Spotlights Honolulu
Seawater System
In a Dec. 18 story about renewable
energy in Hawaii, CNN’s John King featured
the $200 million Honolulu Seawater Air
Conditioning (HSAC) project now in the
early stages of construction. The project will
extract ocean water off Honolulu’s shoreline
for use in cooling around 40 of the downtown area’s largest buildings.
Tom Wilkolak, chief operating officer
of HSAC, said that the cost of his company’s
service will be equal to or less than the cost
of electricity, with the added benefit of offsetting about 178,000 barrels of oil per year.
The CNN piece also showcased solar
and wind energy and biofuels as part of
Hawaii’s energy future. To read a transcript
of the story or watch the video, go to http://
tinyurl.com/ycckewn.
Energy Metering to Be
Compulsory in Dubai
Dubai Municipality is considering making energy metering compulsory for all new
buildings under the Dubai Green Building
Regulations, according to a Jan. 3 Emirates
Business report. The move is being evaluated, with a final decision on implementation
expected within months. It is aimed at reducing energy consumption by offering residents
a tangible incentive to cut their usage.
The current regulation draft states that
for all new buildings other than villas, which
are supplied by a central air-conditioning
source such as district cooling, and where
cooling energy is delivered individually to
several consumers, meters must measure
and record chilled-water supply to air-conditioning units.
Once passed, the new regulations will
remove the flat-rate-paid-per-square-foot
system that that allocates cost to residents
regardless of consumption.
NRG Energy to Power New
Princeton Medical Center
Through its subsidiary NRG Thermal,
NRG Energy Inc. has signed a contract to
provide “combined heat and power plus”
