Energy Efficiency and the Circular Economy: DCA’s Data Centre Re-Transformation 2019

Last week I had the great opportunity to take part in the Data Centre Re-Transformation DCA event. The day was comprised of a series of workshops and sessions that discussed the latest trends in the data centre sector delivered by experts in the industry.

 

The event covered several topics including Industry 4.0, 5G, PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) and its limitations, edge computing, circular economy, modern cooling techniques, energy and heat storage, and much more.

 

One of the biggest concerns in the data centre industry is the increased consumption of power and the inadequate EU regulations and policies in place to mitigate the problems that arise from this increased consumption. It was interesting to see all the new challenges that arise from the high demand of computing, including power consumption, and to see how experts are attempting to tackle these issues.

 

In one of the panels entitled Building a Sustainable Circular Economy, my colleague Astrid talked about the role of Techbuyer in providing sustainable IT hardware and how this saves considerable environmental waste. In another panel, The Catalyst Green Data Centre Project was introduced by Green IT Amsterdam, which is an organisation that aspires to bring together energy, data centre and smart city ecosystems to create smart energy infrastructures of the future. Another panel I enjoyed was The Tip of The Iceberg, which posed interesting questions about the underlying issues of increased data storage and network traffic when it comes to data centres, and the effects of these issues on power consumption.

 

Coming across all these initiatives which aim to reduce the power consumption in data centres made me realise the importance of the KTP project. There is a real need for a tool that aids users in modelling their energy efficiency and to reduce the environmental damage of data centres.

 

Moreover, the event created a platform for collaborating and sharing industry knowledge. There could be a great opportunity to give a demonstration of the KTP project, solicit feedback from industry experts and refine the project as appropriate to take into consideration general market and industry needs. I also got to meet exceptional delegates from different organisations and make new contacts that may wish to collaborate with our project.

 

 

The event was a great learning experience for me, especially since I come from a software background and I had limited knowledge about data centre infrastructure, trends and challenges. It was also a great networking opportunity. I am looking forward to taking everything I learnt on board as we continue working on our KTP project.

 


 

Techbuyer is a global specialist in the buying, selling and refurbishing of data centre and networking equipment. Prolonging the life of components by refurbishing them into high quality equipment results in significant savings on materials, and on the energy taken to manufacture the hardware. Our KTP project is part of our commitment to find better ways of reducing energy consumption during the use phase of equipment. You can find out more about our KTP project here