Google Plans Seawater Cooled Data Centre

According to Google’s Director of Operations, the company plans to start using the world’s first-ever seawater cooled data centre in Finland by the end of this year.  Google is well known for its advances in green technology and web hosting, but this is its first experiment with water-cooling.

The site is still being constructed, but should be online by the autumn.

To create it, Google bought a former paper mill in 2009, and have been redeveloping it in order to use the building’s existing infrastructure. The design takes fresh seawater from the Gulf of Finland and uses an existing quarter-mile long seawater tunnel that had originally delivered seawater to the old mill.

The seawater is pumped from the Gulf through cooling modules, and the water is then gravity fed from the modules out to a building which mixes the now warm water with incoming seawater, in order that the used water is returned to the Gulf at a more normal, lower temperature.

Warmer water entering the Gulf could have a disastrous impact on the local ecology, so extensive thermal modelling was performed to study local tides and plant life.

The system also uses complex cleaning systems that need to be able to withstand the corrosive effect of seawater, and systems also need to be able to be cleaned without being switched off, which has presented challenges.

Google is not advocating this system for everyone – it is very expensive unless implemented on a grand scale - but thinks it is a good example of what can be achieved when taking advantage of the local geography, climate and existing infrastructure.