The Nimbus Centre’s GENiC project is item 11 in the latest Irish EU-commission newsletter.

Cork Institute of Technology leading the way towards Globally Optimised Energy Efficient Data Centres

Cork Institute of Technology is leading the EU-funded GENiC (Globally optimised ENergy efficient data Centres) project, which aims to develop a platform that uses renewables for power generation and to optimise cooling to reduce costs driven by the server workload while at the same time making use of the waste heat to heat nearby buildings such as offices or houses.

Data Centre energy consumption has doubled between 2000 and 2005 and grew by 50% from 2005 to 2010 consuming 1.5% of global energy with continued rapid growth. On average, computing consumes 60% of total energy while cooling consumes 35%. The adoption of new technologies related to computing, cooling, power generation, energy storage, and waste heat recovery individually requires sophisticated controls, but no single manufacturer provides a complete system so integration between control system technologies does not exist.

Dr. Susan Rea, an engineer working in Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) explains that GENiC will address this issue by developing a scalable, integrated management and control platform for data centre wide optimisation of energy consumption.  The project, which is receiving EU funding worth more than €3 million over the next 3 years, is coordinated by CIT, and has 6 other partners including University College Cork and United Technologies Research Centre Ireland Limited.

http://ec.europa.eu/ireland/newsletter/2014/jan-march/newsletter_23_jan_2014_en.htm#Oth