The EURECA project tackles the lack of knowledge and awareness of how to identify and procure environmentally sound and greener data centres. The work will encompass solutions for pre-commercial procurement (PCP) and procurement of innovative solutions (PPI). This will be achieved by consolidating recognised and emerging benchmark criteria into an easy-to-use tool that can be deployed by non-experts. EURECA will recommend an improvement roadmap indicating the procurement options(s) to reduce energy consumption, make efficiencies and minimise the environmental footprint. Key criteria will be presenting the Cost-Benefit analysis, covering the life cycle of the datacentre and the environmental impact. The project will strengthen business cases by presenting training and advisory resources on how to establish the options with both technical and commercially neutral information, without prejudice. These options include, as appropriate, to perform detailed studies on investing in existing staff, refitting facilities, consolidation actions, new builds, or outsourcing – or specific combinations or subsets of these. The resources include RFI, ITT or RFP templates, technical & environmental data directories and a case study catalogue, structured along the procurement workflow. The ultimate goal is to enable procurement teams to choose environmentally sound buying options whilst producing true and robust cost-benefit visibility to enable successful triggering of tenders. To ensure efficient use of the project’s developments, we will deliver a coherent set of targeted and efficient training components, developed throughout the project that supports the use of the EURECA tool and its resources. The consortium’s existing comprehensive liaisons to European and international standards committees and industry groups will ensure the EURECA programme is a “living” resource that is sustainable, interactive and able to reflect the latest developments. .

Cooling systems for Computing & Data Centres consume 30% to 40% of energy delivered into the centre spaces, while electricity use in CDCs represents 1.3% of the world total energy consumption. The traditional vapour compression cooling systems for CDCs are neither energy efficient nor environmentally friendly. Several alternative cooling systems, e.g., adsorption/absorption, ejector, and evaporative types, have certain level of energy saving potential but exhibit some inherent problems that have restricted their wide applications in CDCs. This RISE programme aims to form an international and inter-sectoral network of organisations working on a joint research and innovation programme dedicated to develop the design theory, computerised tool and technology prototypes for a novel CDC dew point cooling system. Such a system, comprising a few critical and highly innovative components (i.e., dew point air cooler, adsorbent sorption/regeneration cycle, micro-channels-loop-heat-pipe (MCLHP) based CDC heat recovery system, paraffin/expanded-graphite based heat storage/exchanger, and internet-based intelligent monitoring and control system), is expected to achieve 60% to 90% of electrical energy saving and have a comparable initial price to traditional CDC air conditioning systems, thus removing the above outstanding problems remaining with existing CDC cooling systems. Within the programme, the participants will exchange skills and knowledge that will allow them to progress towards the key target set for the CDC dew point cooling system, and strengthen collaborative research among different countries and sectors. The advances in the novel CDC dew point cooling system will have potential market opportunities for non-academic participants in the programme, and have significant benefits to European society and economy. The staff members who participate in the programme will develop new skills, be exposed to new research environments and have their career perspectives widened.