24.04.2024
CERN: reconciling technical excellence and environmental performance
Last month our teams were in Prévessin (01) for the inauguration ceremony of the European Laboratory for Particle Physics. An important milestone in the CERN's quest for scientific excellence!
Located on either side of the French-Swiss border, CERN is one of Europe's most prestigious particle physics laboratories. Founded in 1954, its technologies are used in the healthcare field for diagnosis, imaging and therapy, as well as for computing and simulations.
The operation of this infrastructure relies on a complete industrial facility comprising a complex particle gas pedal, a global computing grid, a high-capacity room and two data centers. Data centers are regularly singled out for their energy-hungry requirements. They account for 1.5% of the European Union's total electricity consumption.
The new CERN data center was designed and deployed by a consortium led by Equans France. Our experts were involved right from the design phase of the project to optimize the size of the installations and support all suppliers in a virtuous approach. The data center's capacity will be essential to support the growth of data at the service of experiments conducted by the fundamental research institute.
A state-of-the-art data center for global research
The aim of this project is to combine high scientific performance, ongoing efficiency and low environmental impact.
To guarantee the system's continuous power supply, the servers are powered by two separate electrical channels, which take turns in the event of a malfunction, thus ensuring continuity of service. Redundancy is a crucial issue, as even the slightest failure could lead to serial failures and hamper the smooth operation of the equipment.
The heat generated by the IT servers is recovered to heat other buildings. A digital supervision system completes the issue of energy efficiency by monitoring equipment and its consumption. It enables the rapid detection of malfunctions or over-consumption.
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As CERN's main energy optimization lever, cold production at the Prévessin-Moëns data center is carried out by "drycoolers". This innovative equipment avoids the need for energy-hungry chillers, by making the most of a resource that's as local as it is inexhaustible: the relatively cool air temperature of the Ain region! Powered by 8 adiabatic drycoolers (16 MWf), measuring around 12 metres long and 4 metres high, cold production is ensured by redundancy and a tempered water loop capable of oscillating between 22°C and 32°C. In concrete terms, the data center's drycoolers use outside air to cool the closed water loop, which ensures the refrigeration of the servers and the smooth running of their electronic components. In summer, when the outside air rises above 22°C, the drycoolers switch to "wet mode". Water trickles down onto damp cardboard, which in turn cools the water loop by evaporation. To further reduce the data center's water consumption, run-off water from the drycoolers is collected in tanks, achieving a consumption of less than 0.331 L / KWh IT. In each room, five huge fanwalls distribute cold and ensure that the overall target temperature, set at 26°C by CERN, never drifts above 32°C.
Focus on PUE: the energy performance indicator
The PUE is an index that designates the ratio between the total annual electrical energy consumed by the site, and in particular that consumed for cooling its servers, and the electrical energy consumed by the servers themselves.
More modern and energy-efficient, the new data center's installations will be monitored for 1 year, to guarantee that CERN achieves a PUE of less than 1.15, a score unheard of in the industry! In the 2000s, the energy requirements of the whole complex were almost twice as high as those needed to process and store data on the servers alone.
This unprecedented performance is due to a combination of solutions deployed by Equans France's experts: the installation of particularly efficient cold production and cooling systems in computer rooms, the installation of latest-generation servers enabling high operating temperatures of 26°C (drifting up to 32°C) and an energy monitoring tool.
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At the ceremony, Yves Nussbaum, Industry Market Director at Equans France was joined by Professor Joachim Mnich, Director of Research and Informatics, and Enrica Porcari, Head of CERN's Information Technology Department, as well as Aurélie Charillon, Mayor of Prévessin-Moëns.
Equans is proud to contribute its expertise to the operational and energy performance of a building that is a showcase for international scientific research. The data center's demand for excellence echoes the ambition shared with CERN to develop facilities that are resource-efficient, energy-saving, virtuous for the environment and favor the circular economy. Vincent Itier, Project Director, Equans France
We are proud to offer research a high-precision data center capable of reconciling the environment and scientific discovery. This pioneering project confirms CERN's ambition through a truly sustainable high-tech dynamic. Wayne Salter, head of the Facilities group in CERN's IT department
