Gangwon-do will reach a global-level eco-friendly data center by utilizing energy from water, they were able to reducethe cooling power, using the heat energy from the Soyanggang Dam. It is expected to provide an eco-friendly data center model by reducing carbon emissions by 82% compared to urban data centers. Gwang-Jun Ham, head of the water resources industry in Gangwon Province, introduced the strengths of the data center cluster that Gangwon Province is building in a keynote speech at the '2021 Data Center Summit' held online by the Electronic Newspaper and the Korea Data Center Association on the 14th.
Gangwon-do is developing a 'Gangwon hydrothermal energy convergence cluster' in the area of 230,000 pyeong, Jiji-ri, Dong-myeon, Chuncheon-si. An 'environment-friendly data center' will be built within the cluster. It is expected that it will attract 6 cloud data centers. Gangwon-do's eco-friendly data center utilizes hydrothermal energy from Soyanggang Dam. The pipe is connected to the Soyanggang Dam which does down to the depth of 198m underground, and the data is moved through the center of the integrated management center. The average water temperature of Soyanggang Dam is 7 degrees. According to the simulation of the plan, Gangwon-do expects that a world-class ultra-high-efficiency data center will be established.
Team leader Ham said, “It was found that using the hydrothermal energy of Soyanggang Dam can save 83% of energy per data center compared to the traditional air conditioning system, saving 16 billion won annually. It can be built with a low floor height of two stories or less, and the construction period will be shortened from 24 months to less than 18 months, suggesting a new eco-friendly data center role model in Korea.”
Major global companies have declared RE100 (renewable energy 100%) and are focusing on building eco-friendly data centers. It is known that Google and Microsoft (MS) are using hydrothermal energy or eco-friendly methods to lower the PUE value, which indicates data center power use efficiency, with the goal of realizing RE100. A PUE of 1.5 or less corresponds to the level of a global eco-friendly data center. As a result of the simulation, it was analyzed that the Gangwon-do cluster data center would achieve PUE 1.2 or lower.
Meanwhile, domestic cloud data center companies such as Naim Networks, Hyosung Information System, Orchestra, and Deus Systems participated in this event to share technology flow, implementation strategies and cases. Young-seok Seo, CEO of Naim Networks, said, “It is necessary to establish an operation management platform for efficient management of public and private clouds.
By Staff Reporter Jiseon Kim river@etnews.com, By Staff Reporter Hyemi Kwon hyeming@etnews.com