HGC GlobalCentre Limited (HGCGC) this week announced energy management measures that it says will position its two data centers in Hong Kong - with a combined gross floor area of 230,000 sq ft - at the forefront of the green initiative.

Specifically, its Cavendish Centre data center located in Wong Chung Hang has been fitted out with a new cooling management system designed to significantly reduce electricity consumption, while the Watson Center facility in Kwai Chung has been awarded the ISO 50001 certification for energy management.

According to HGCGC, the new system leveraged technology from Vigilent to monitor the environment and intelligibly tweak the more than 80 chilled-water computer room air-con (CRAC) systems in operation at Cavendish Centre. The new system would help reduce annual air-con electricity consumption and carbon emissions by 30 percent, while partial Power Usage Effectiveness (pPUE) is expected to improve by more than 10 percent.

“[Humans] can do similar data collection, analysis, modeling, and continuous monitoring and adjusting the CRAC,” explained Y C Lee, head of data center at HGCGC to Datacenter Dynamics. Lee noted however, that the effort required to it manually would be “enormous” and would not react as quickly or be as efficient.

Wireless sensors
“The Vigilent system uses wireless temperature sensors distributed in the data hall to collect large amounts of data for the artificial intelligence and knowledge-based servers to do analysis and modeling,” said Lee. “It also provides direct control on the CRAC units to optimize the set point temperature and airflow volume so as to meet the service level set for the data hall.”

ISO 50001 is a management system model intended to provide organizations with a framework for integrating energy performance as part of management practices. Among other things, it is concerned with the implementation of management strategies to increase energy efficiency and reduce cost.

In its pursuit of the green agenda, HGCGC says it intends to install the same cooling system at its Watson Centre facility, as well as to seek the ISO 50001 certification for Cavendish Centre over the next two years.

IDC this year ranked Hong Kong as the number one location in the Asia Pacific for its suitability for setting up new and outsourced data centers. It is easy to see why given that it is free from natural disaster, and is supported by a robust infrastructure in terms of electricity and network coverage. In addition, Hong Kong is governed under a separate legal framework from China that guarantees data privacy. The IDC ranking puts Singapore and Taiwan in second and third place respectively.