In January, Facebook users spent more than 10.5 billion minutes a day accessing the site just by computer, according to the company's IPO. That takes a lot of energy. Most data centers'large hubs of servers that handle bank transactions, cloud-based email services, and friend requests'devote around one-third of their energy consumption to building operations. Having leased space in such facilities, Facebook wanted its first data center to maximize energy efficiency. Working with Sheehan Partners and AlfaTech Consulting, the company rethought every piece of equipment, from circuit boards to air handling. Thanks to an evaporative cooling system, a custom power-distribution system, and a backyard solar array, the new data center devotes just over one-fifteenth of its power to operations.
To do away with power-guzzling air-conditioning towers, Facebook located the 333,400-square-foot facility in the high desert of central Oregon, where humidity stays low and summer temperatures peak at 90 degrees. Clad in corrugated steel and enclosed by a wall of precast-concrete panels, Sheehan Partners' design functions as a giant cooling system. Large fan walls in the mechanical penthouse push dry desert air through filters; next, misters send fine sprays of water into the air. When the water evaporates, the air temperature drops in a process called evaporative cooling. This arrangement takes advantage of advances in the operation of servers, which now run comfortably at 80 degrees, warmer than the former standard of 68 to 72 degrees.
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