DUBLIN, Ireland – If there’s a poster child for Ireland’s ideal climate for free cooling, it would be the huge data center in Dublin that powers Microsoft’s online services in Europe. The average annual temperature ranges between 23 and 80 degrees F (-5 to 27 degrees C), allowing Microsoft to use free cooling – the use of fresh air to cool servers – year-round under normal operating conditions.
“Free cooling” – also known as air-side economization – allows facility owners to dramatically reduce the amount of energy used in cooling. Chillers, which are used to refrigerate water, are widely used in data center cooling systems but require a large amount of electricity to operate.That allows Microsoft to use less energy than in its data centers in some other areas of the world, operating at a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.17 in its newest data halls.
To take full advantage of the cool climate, the Microsoft data center is designed to perform as a giant air handler. Cool outside air comes into the facility through intakes on the rooftop air handers, and then flows through a duct system into the data center. The air moves through the servers, and exits in the hot aisle, where it is contained and vented through a plenum that returns it to the air handlers.
These photos over an overview of the path the air follows as it makes its way through the Microsoft Dublin facility: