Gaichas, third from the left, at the groundbreaking ceremony last month
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — At the end of June, Web hosting provider pair Networks (www.pair.com) broke ground on its Las Vegas data center. The list of green elements in the new facility is lengthy, and includes everything from 100 percent daylit offices to sustainably forested wood.
While many data centers claim to be green, Tim Gaichas, executive vice president of business development for pair Networks says other data center operators fail to be comprehensive with their green initiatives and often neglect to consider the whole package from design to construction.
In an email interview with the WHIR, Gaichas talks about the challenge of building an environmentally-friendly facility and how pair Networks came up with a design without the influence of existing green facilities.
WHIR: In the press release you refer to pair Networks new data center as the greenest web hosting facility in the world? How is this measured as compared to other green data centers?
Tim Gaichas: We aren’t just considering the energy efficiency of our data center. pair Networks is taking a holistic approach to the design and construction of the entire facility, including the process itself. That is to say that even design process and construction activities are as green as they can be. Additionally, pair Networks has considered the climate in the facility’s location, every material on the site and in the building, the total life-cycle of the entire facility (every material, large and small), every technology used in the project, and have made every effort to have the highest quality of life for the employees working in the facility (which makes for happy employees and well run, efficient business).
Everything from which plants are placed on the site, to what’s in the paint on the walls, to how much server hardware should be stored on-site were carefully considered. The entire project is meant to have the lowest impact possible, within an industry that has a very high and negative impact on the environment generally. And, beyond all that, we are projecting (based on our power consumption models) a Power Usage Effectiveness of .96 — that will be the lowest PUE ever achieved in any website hosting data center.
So, pair Networks is not only greening absolutely every aspect of the project, we also the most energy efficient too.
WHIR: When designing the data center, were there existing green data centers you took inspiration from?
Gaichas: No. As a matter of fact, we did everything possible to rethink the design of a data center from the ground up. While most “green” data centers are nothing more than conventionally designed facilities, with special attention given to reducing energy consumption, ours considers the overall impact of a data center, in general, and how pair Networks uses data centers specifically. We don’t need a giant, cavernous empty box, that could take years (if not a decade or more) to fill with servers, while the entire time maintaining a huge, and mostly empty, facility. That’s what our competitors do. pair Networks has adopted a ‘use what we need; build as we go’ concept where we only need enough space to cover two years worth of growth at a time. Not only can we cost effectively develop and deploy additional phases to the facility, quickly, we can use the latest, and most energy efficient and earth-friendly technologies of the future (that have yet to be developed or perfected), as we go. We’re not locked into anything. As a matter of fact, part of the concept is to be “future proof” — that’s very good for the business and the environment, which is the whole idea.
WHIR: Can you describe the electricity that the data center will use?
Gaichas: The specific details are still trade secrets. Generally speaking, pair Networks will be generating all of the electricity on site and using the power grid as our backup. We’ll provide more specific details as the facility is closer to completion.
WHIR: pair Networks claims the data center will decrease energy costs by 30 to 40 percent. How will this be achieved?
Gaichas: Without getting into all of the details, pair Networks will accomplish substantial energy savings in the following four ways:
1. On-site power generation is three times more efficient that using grid energy (as most of the energy from the grid is lost between generation and transmission to its final destination).
2. Renewable energy will also be generated on-site with a large solar array.
3. The data center will only utilize the most energy efficient Web hosting servers available, all of which will have platinum rated power supplies that are roughly 93 percent efficient.
4. All of the heat (for the offices; it gets cold enough to require heat in the Winter in Las Vegas) and the majority of cooling for the entire facility (both offices and data center) is free (how we are accomplishing this is a trade secret) — this is probably the coolest part (pun intended) of the project.
WHIR: What is the most challenging aspect of designing a green data center?
Gaichas: It has been very challenging to deal with various stakeholders that simply couldn’t let go of their biases regarding conventional design and construction (I’m referring to folks outside of pair Networks, Inc.), as well as the ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it’ mentality, that frankly, most folks have. It’s always challenging to be the first company to do something groundbreaking, but we are hoping that the entire industry follows us, for our industry’s sake, and for the sake of our natural environment.
About Nicole Henderson
Nicole Henderson writes full-time for the Web Host Industry Review where she covers daily news and features online, as well as in print. She has a bachelor of journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto, and has been writing for the WHIR since September 2010. You can find her on Twitter @NicoleHenderson.
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