In June, an upgraded data center of Baltic Data Center started its operation in Vilnius. The centre is the first in Central and Eastern Europe to use the KyotoCooling technology for server cooling. The system, implemented by engineering solutions company Fima, allows to cool servers with outdoor air. This data center uses 8 times less energy for cooling and is much more environmentally-friendly.

TEO Group invested EUR 1.7 million in the new data center.

“Information technologies push their way into more and more areas of life, the number of data centers all over the world is growing rapidly. Their owners begin to actively address energy-saving issues, and engineers in different countries are constantly improving data center technologies. We are glad that Lithuania has the opportunity to be one of the first to use the most recent technological solutions”, - Saulius Markūnas, Director of Baltic Data Center, says.

According to him, organizations that focus on the rational use of natural resources are particularly interested in the opportunities to use the services of the new data center.

Baltic Data Center is the third company in the world that has implemented KyotoCooling, the server cooling solution created in the Netherlands. The first data center with this technology was installed in 2007 for one of Dutch telecom companies.

According to Valdas Vrubliauskas, Head of Automation and Data Networks Solutions Department of Fima, the company which designed and installed the data center, the largest amount of electricity in a data centre is usually used for cooling servers – this can use almost as much energy as the operation of servers. The KyotoCooling technology allows reducing energy costs for cooling the data center by even up to 8 times.

“Outdoor air cannot enter the data center’s server room directly. The ventilators of the KyotoCooling system intake cold air from the outdoors and transmit it to a rotary heat exchanger – a special big wheel. It gets cooled from the outdoor air temperature, whilst at the same time cooling the server room as well“, - Valdas Vrubliauskas says.

According to him, this cooling method cannot completely replace the traditional one, because it works only when the outdoor temperature is not higher than 22 degrees Celsius above zero. However, the climate in Lithuania is generally cool, so it is particularly favourable for implementation of this technology.

The KyotoCooling technology also enables the targeted use of the heat emitted from the data center: in winter, Baltic Data Center will use this energy for heating the building’s office premises.

The KyotoCooling technology, implemented in the data center of Baltic Data Center, will, within one year, reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere by more than 700 tons, compared with the amount of gas emitted by a conventional data centre of the same size.