data centers looking for solutions to reduce their environmental footprint

The snoring is permanent between the walls of the data center of La Courneuve, near Paris. The fans of the servers are at the origin of this melody which is as high as it is constant. Here, in one of the largest French data centers, the videos you watch on the internet are stored in particular. All in a material that absolutely must be cooled. “Because the room would be quite simply hot. It would rise to more than 50 ° C, in 10, 15 minutes at 45 degrees. The machines go to safety”, exposes Fabrice Coquio, Managing Director of Interxion France, one of the leaders in the sector.

In the room worthy of a safe, the temperature is maintained at 24 ° C. “If I turned off the air conditioning systems, all of that, in less than ten minutes, it would stop.” Maintaining a certain temperature is essential for the proper functioning of machines just as it can be energy intensive. While digital represents 4% of CO2 emissions worldwide, this type of infrastructure is called upon to make efforts.

“In Marseille, we have just connected a cooling by river water which makes that 99% of the time, I run without electricity.”

Fabrice Coquio, Managing Director of Interxion France

franceinfo

Here, to understand how the company is trying to limit its electricity consumption, you have to take an elevator. “We are on the roof. This is called the technical terrace. We will use the cooling capacity of the air to naturally cool our installations, without even having to run the compressors and therefore consume energy. electricity”, specifies Fabrice. The outside air is used to cool the servers, this is called “free cooling”.

But electricity is still needed to power all these devices. “Here, we are in a 32 megawatt building. 32 megawatts is about what a city of 50,000 people consumes. We are truly an electrical plant.” France has around 200 data centers and construction sites are multiplying.

In Seine-Saint-Denis, Interxion is building the largest data center in the country. “In the 19th century, we made stations and railroads. In the 20th century, airports to highways. In the 21st century, we made cables and data centers. There is no digital world, if there is there is no infrastructure for, including data centers. “

But for some, we have to slow down. Hugues Ferreboeuf, from The shift project association, pleads for digital sobriety. “The digital environmental footprint is growing at a rate of around 5 to 6% per year. Do we really need two smartphones, one for professional use and one for private use? is that kind of sense of proportion, which has to fall back into place. “

A law to reduce the digital environmental footprint is in preparation. It will be considered again on November 2 in the Senate. COP26 is due to start on October 31 in Glasgow.