In a data centre one of the largest outputs and wastes is heat – heat generated through power . A number of data centre providers across the world are looking for ways to reduce that heat and ultimately the power consumption and energy efficiency of the building . Some companies choose to reuse the heat and utilise it as cold air for the cooling system . For St . Gallisch-Appenzellische Kraftwerke AG ( SAK ), the company has found a much more unique way .

“ Around 20m away from our data centre , a local cheese factory is building a new facility and we can bring in 1.5mn KW of heat energy that they can then use to heat up 10mn litres of milk every year ,” says Christoph Baumgärtner , Head of

Business Customer Services at SAK .

1.5mn KW may sound like an incredibly significant amount of heat and energy , but if SAK ’ s data centre was at full capacity , it only represents 10 % of what the company could deliver .

“ That ’ s part of our business . Heating networks , wind parks , solar power , fiber to the home network , data centres . Our entire core business is changing , slowly , but surely .” He says .

SAK is a colocation data centre provider and a fiber network provider based in Switzerland . Baumgärtner comes from a background in electrical engineering and working on connectivity as a manufacturer of cables and connectors . Quite literally , he knows the makeup of a data centre inside and out .

This provided Baumgärtner with an opportunity to grasp the major issues that each and

66 August 2017