Verizon Data Center Installation Cuts Water Discharges 20%

A Verizon data center has been using Clearwater Systems’ Dolphin WaterCare technology to cut water discharges by more than 20 percent, or 1.6 million gallons, compared to chemically treated water, Clearwater says.

The project helped Verizon win a 2012 Green Enterprise IT Award from the Uptime Institute. The award, granted in the facility design implementation category, recognizes the combination of resource efficiency, environmental responsibility, and scalability in building a Tier III, LEED Gold certified data center in Twinsburg, Ohio.

Dolphin WaterCare was installed in the center’s cooling system to treat a maximum cooling load of about 2,600 tons, and provides the Twinsburg site with an opportunity for water reuse. By using the discharge water from the cooling tower, Verizon can implement graywater applications such as landscape irrigation.

Given the chemical-free operation of Dolphin WaterCare, this Verizon Wireless facility also avoids the cost, storage needs, and waste generated by the use of typical chemical water treatment, Clearwater says.

Last year, a Harris Corporation and Lee Technologies data center in Harrisonburg, Virginia that also used Dolphin won a GEIT Award.

In other data center news, building technology organization ASHRAE has released the second edition of its guide to power trends in data center design.

Datacom Equipment Power Trends and Cooling Applications provides new and expanded data center equipment power trend charts to allow data center designers to more accurately predict future equipment loads and provides ways of applying the trend information to facility designs, ASHRAE says. The guide covers component power trends, load trends and their application, air cooling of equipment and liquid cooling of equipment.

In March this year, Verizon pledged to cut its CO2 intensity in half by 2020, using 2009 as a baseline.

The company made the announcement as it released its first combined financial and corporate responsibility report, which revealed that Verizon reduced its carbon intensity by 30 percent from 2009 to 2011. This means the company needs another 20 percentage point decrease to reach its 2020 goal.