Our Publications
Knowledge sharing and transparency are at the heart of our organization. Access our latest vision, research, policy and white papers, reports, announcements, press releases and articles.
Whitepaper
The Cooling Requirements of Data Centers
Concerns regarding the environment, energy efficiency, and compute density are playing a big role in the future of HPC facilities and data center designs. Liquid-cooling is an order of magnitude more efficient at cooling IT equipment, and as such, it is becoming an integral part of future strategies and a valuable alternative to air-cooling for existing data centers.
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Developing a Circular Economy for the Data Centre Industry: The CEDaCI project
This paper describes the whole-systems approach and CEDaCI project outputs, including bespoke Eco-design guidelines, strategies, and digital tools to extend product life and recycling, and enable better decision-making to increase circularity in the DCI, prepare and support implementation of the EU Circular Economy Action Plan and ensure a secure, sustainable resource supply chain.
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Retrofitting of an air-cooled data center for energy efficiency
Small-scale data centers suffering from low cooling efficiency consume an intense power for reliable operation of IT equipment. In this study, thermal distribution in an air-cooled data center is simulated using an open source Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model to examine the underlying mechanism that reduces thermal and cooling efficiencies. The numerical model is validated with the temperature measurements conducted in the data center.
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Sustainability Strategy for Data Centers
This paper explores how transparency and open data can be a viable sustainability strategy for data centers and also shows how you can implement this strategy.
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Building a Sustainable, Federated European Cloud: A Vision for Europe
This document outlines the vision for a sustainable and accessible European cloud; one that will be open-source, fair, and create economic opportunities for all. Despite existing challenges, it is possible and may soon become a reality. Such digital infrastructure will reflect European values and provide a blueprint that others around the world can draw inspiration from to further develop their own digital economies.
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Comments on the Task A document dated 28/11/2022 supplied by Viegand Maagøe and COWI on behalf of the EU Commission regarding the Energy Efficiency Directive
Co-created and aggregated by the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance e.V. and the following collaborators, each of which is a signatory of the document: Jens Gröger, Marc Wilkens, Gaia Balzarini, Giuseppe Leto, Quentin Laurens, Raphael Daniel, Prof. Patricia Lago, Max Schulze.
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Commentary on the Energy Efficiency Directive
We welcome this opportunity to share our comments on this recast of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED).
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On-site Power Generation for Data Centers
This paper is an output from our Steering Groups and sheds light on the opportunities and challenges to the genuine decarbonization of data centers.
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Battery Study
Back-up power for data centers: A comprehensive study on the viability of batteries as the industry standard replacement for diesel generators.
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The Utility of the Future Report
Both energy and digitalization are on everybody's minds today. Both play increasingly important roles in our daily lives, yet few realise how interdependent these industries truly are. Digitalization promises to re-align our economy around data and computation, but the digital economy of tomorrow will be built on the shoulders of today’s electrical infrastructure. Fewer still can see the tremendous industrial and societal opportunities when two fundamental requirements of the digital age integrate.
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High potential of CO2-free commercial waste heat from data centers (German paper)
In a joint statement of the SDIA with the Energieeffizienzverband für Wärme, Kälte und KWK e. V. (Energy Efficiency Association for Heating, Cooling and CHP - AGFW) and Bitkom e. V. we express the urgent need to adjust the definition of waste heat in the upcoming changes to the Combined Heat and Power Act (KWKG) in Germany in order to support the use of waste heat from data centers as a climate-neutral and sustainable energy source.
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