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Yahoo! Cool to Building WNY Center

by Thomas Hartley

Friday, April 23, 2010

Not often do Western New Yorkers hear outsiders describe their climate as “mild.”

But favorable aspects of the region’s weather were what Yahoo! officials say were key factors in their choosing a 30-acre site in Lockport for a new and what they say is a unique energy-efficient data center that will serve the U.S. East Coast.

The California-based company says the design, which uses outside air to completely cool the interior of the complex, will make it one of the most environmentally friendly and energy-efficient buildings of its kind in the country.

The design is key to Yahoo!’s commitment to reduce its carbon intensity by 40 percent by 2014, said Scott Noteboom, Yahoo!’s director of data center engineering operations, in the April issue of New York Construction, a trade magazine.

Construction of the 155,000-square-foot complex, which began last August, is slated for completion in June. It is expected to go online in September.

Dubbed the “Computer Coop” because of a resemblance to huge chicken coops, the complex consists of four structures: a 25,000-square-foot administrative building and three 30,000-square-foot data center wings. Sufficient space is available on the site for three additional wings.

The structures are oriented on the site to take advantage of prevailing west-to-east winds from Lake Erie and will use outside air for cooling, Noteboom said.

The data center wings, or pods, look like long rectangles with side walls lined with controlled louvers. When the louvers are opened, natural ventilation and fans draw cool outside air into the building.

The high-pitched roofs are designed with cupolas. Interior air that is warmed by heat given off by the data center’s equipment is drawn upward and vented to the outside through the louvers in the cupola.

Christina Page, Yahoo!’s director of climate and energy strategy, said in an average industry data center, as much as 50 percent of electricity usage goes to keeping the equipment cool.

“By using free cooling at least 99 percent of the time, this design will drastically improve the efficiency of the data center,” she said.

“It’s going to be by far Yahoo!’s most efficient and arguably the most innovative data center, at least from a cooling perspective,” Noteboom said.

Read more: Yahoo! cool to building WNY center - Business First of Buffalo