NTT data centers support a sustainable digital world

Fiber-optic networks and data centers are the foundation of our digital society. As demand for digital solutions increases at a rapid pace, so does the demand for data center services.

As a leader in this market, NTT Global Data Centers provides organizations with a highly available and secure home for their critical IT systems. In addition, our data centers are well connected to major internet exchanges, cloud service providers and telecommunications networks.

We plan, build and operate our data centers in a particularly energy-efficient manner. Taking responsibility for the effect we have on the environment, we are pursuing the ambitious goal of reducing net emissions from our plant operations to zero by 2030, and along our entire value chain by 2040. With this commitment, we in turn help our clients reduce their carbon footprint and achieve their sustainability goals.

Germany, one of our major data center hubs, is a great example of our sustainability efforts in action.

No waste of electricity and water

Most data center emissions come from cooling and power supply systems. That’s why we rely on efficient cooling technologies, energy-saving components and intelligent power management to achieve power usage effectiveness (PUE) ratio of 1.3 or lower for our latest data centers.

This ratio shows how efficiently a data center uses energy. Our 1.3 ratio means that for every kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity that flows into the operation of our clients' IT systems, only up to 0.3kWh of electricity is required for the surrounding data center infrastructure.

In data centers built in Germany since 2019, we offer a power density of at least 2kW/m² and higher air-supply temperatures that enable efficient cooling. The IT systems in these data centers are consistently cooled by cold aisle enclosure so that the cool air flowing from the raised floor does not mix with the warm exhaust of the systems.

The raised floor is raised particularly high to create a larger cross-section for volume flow and to transport the cold air as efficiently as possible to save electricity.

Data centers designed for local conditions

We consider the local environmental conditions of each data center in our design. For example, our Munich 2 Data Center can be cooled efficiently with groundwater because the geological conditions there allow it. In most other data centers, however, cooling is done with outside air.

We believe that cooling techniques which consume millions of liters of water should no longer be used. In regions that increasingly experience long, dry periods, heat is dissipated exclusively via dry coolers that do not consume valuable drinking water, even when outside temperatures are very high. This is why, in Germany, we generally dispense with more energy-efficient adiabatic systems that involve the evaporative cooling of water.

Focusing on renewable energy

We also already cover a significant proportion of our electricity needs with power from renewable energy sources. We are currently negotiating and concluding power purchase agreements with producers of renewable energy to reduce our percentage of CO₂ emissions from electricity consumption as far as possible below that of the standard electricity mix.

A pioneer in waste heat recovery

From the very beginning, we used the waste heat from our data centers to heat our offices and to preheat the diesel generators that form part of our emergency power systems. In this area, we are ahead of most other organizations in our industry. Many of our competitors use electricity exclusively to heat their generators to their regular operating temperature of about 40°C.

In addition, we are making intensive efforts to find other uses for the waste heat in residential and commercial areas. This is no easy task in Germany because of outdated heating networks and a lack of large consumers.

For our new Berlin 2 Data Center, we have developed an innovative energy concept with the energy supplier GASAG and Investa Real Estate, the operator of the city’s Marienpark commercial district. Initially, up to 20% of the waste heat generated will be used for the management of Marienpark and, by the end of the decade, up to 80% could be diverted to supply other districts and users too. Berlin 2 thus has the potential to become a showcase location for the German data center industry in the field of waste heat utilization.

Do you want to talk about our sustainable initiatives across our locations or have questions about our data center services and products? Contact our data center experts by phone at +49 69 7801-2190, by email at dc.emea.sales@global.ntt or contact form

Günter Eggers is Director Public at NTT Global Data Centers EMEA