One of the most striking inefficiencies (both ecological and economic) in the modern work place is HVAC-related system of the server room.
Even in the dead of winter while an organization is spending money keeping the rest of the building warm, it's spending money keeping its server room cool.
There are a few ways around this.
A. Cloud Computing
To resolve the economic inefficiency only, they might move to
cloud-computing and reduce the number of servers in the server room.
This doesn't reduce the ecological impact of using electricity to cool servers - it just moves them to another location. And this will only reduce costs if the cost of leasing machines in the cloud is cheaper than keeping them on site.
B. Ultragreen Cloud Computing
Google is taking an interesting step -
placing data centers in locales that don't require them to use air .... There's an opportunity for entrepreneurs here: ultragreen cloud computing that uses renewable (or even
carbon negative) power and doesn't even use electricity for cooling.
C. Using the server room to heat the building
Only the leanest organizations are going to be able to get away with not having a server room at all, even with cloud computing. And some will be stymied by legal (ex, HIPPA) considerations as well as security and stability issues. If you can't get rid of your server room, what can you do? Use it to heat your building.
I'm surprised I haven't seen this being done anywhere (but just because I haven't seen it doesn't mean it's not being done).
So here's my "design":
Install a suction fan in the server room that blows air into duct
Pipe the duct to largest room in the building that needs to be heated.
Add a fork in the duct that leads outside
Install connected adjustable vents to the ends of the ducts. As the vent into the room to be heated is closed, the outside vent opens wider. The indoor vent can be closed completely during the summer.
This is the simplest way I can think of. I'm sure more complex ways could be implemented as well.
So - where are the flaws in my concept? (I'm sure there must be some). And who's going to give it a shot?
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