To store the increasing amount of valuable data, government agencies, banks and large companies are investing in green data centres, and the market is expected to grow at an annual rate of more than 27%. Apple’s latest announcement to invest 1.7 billion EUR in two green data centres in Europe confirms this. For Danfoss, which is specialised in energy-efficient cooling and heating solutions, the development is driving growth and great opportunities.

For data centre owners, energy efficiency is high on the agenda as a means to reduce costs and CO2 emissions in an industry, which, today, already uses 2% of all electricity generated worldwide. Data centres house servers, storage devices, cables, Internet connections, and a large amount of equipment associated with supplying power and cooling. The cost of power amounts to 20-60% of operating expenses over the life of a data centre, and a rather large part of the costs is used to remove heat to keep data safe at the right temperature and humidity. However, efficient cooling solutions with Danfoss technology can cut energy consumption dramatically.

Jürgen Fischer, president of Danfoss Cooling Segment, says: “Government agencies, banks and large companies need to ensure stabile systems around the clock, which makes reliability and energy efficiency key priorities. Our cooling technologies can help them achieve this. Therefore, we hold a strong position in the data centre industry, where we are currently experiencing more than 10% growth per year.”

In Europe, for example, Danfoss is cooperating with a number of UK-based climate solutions providers. Together, they have delivered cooling units with Danfoss variable speed compressors for data centre applications, which have enabled the owners to typically save around 30% on energy use annually.

In the United States, the IT infrastructure company Inertech is among the users of Danfoss technology. Inertech is delivering innovative energy solutions for data centres, which use a free cooling cycle and make it possible to cut cooling energy consumption by up to 90% and water usage by up to 80%, depending on local conditions. The cycle is assisted by both Danfoss variable speed compressors and drives to ensure the right temperature at any time and save energy. With the Inertech solution, a customer spending US$20m annually can knock down energy costs to US$2m.

Energy efficiency in data centres can also be further improved from a heating point of view. The huge amount of surplus heat that is being generated can actually be led into existing district heating networks - like Apple plans to do in its new data centre in Viborg, Denmark. Worldwide, there is massive potential in using surplus heat from the industry to heat homes, and Danfoss has district heating solutions that can make it happen.