Green by design

Fuel cells offer performance, quality, reliability and resilience, placing power near where it is consumed. SV5 was our alpha deployment of Bloom Energy fuel cells in 2015 (1 MW installation). Equinix has 38 MW of fuel cells at data centres in Silicon Valley (SV1, SV2, SV3, SV4, SV5, SV6, SV10), New York area (NY2, NY4, NY5) and Los Angeles area (LA3, LA4, LA7).

Smardt chillers provide maximum efficiency at our Toronto (TR2) data centre. They incorporate Turbocor mag-lev compressor chillers with advanced energy savings and economisation features, as well as water-side economiser heat exchangers for wintertime free-cooling. 

Pairing IDECs with complete hot aisle containment and granular supply air control reduces PUE in low-load situations such as at our New York (NY6) data centre. This achieves an estimated fully loaded average annual PUE of 1.21. IDEC units use evaporative-based heat rejection and reduce water usage for heat rejection by utilising air-to-air cooling when outside temperature permits.

Equinix’s AM3 data centre features an ATES system that employs cold groundwater to cool equipment during winter months, eliminating the need for traditional mechanical cooling within the data centre. Excess heat is even used to warm buildings nearby. AM3 relies on free-air cooling the rest of the year. AM3 has achieved a remarkable design PUE of 1.19.

Our SV5 data centre incorporates techniques from state-of-the-art refrigeration systems to significantly reduce the power needed to cool the colocation floor. The system uses efficient direct expansion coils, lower fan power through air management approaches and an innovative evaporative condensing system that is less energy intensive than conventional air-cooled condensers.

In TR1 data centre, we take advantage of Toronto’s DLWC system to utilise water drawn from the chilly depths of Lake Ontario to cool buildings in downtown Toronto. This novel approach reduces total energy needs by 50% or more.