HostDime has announced the start of construction of a solar power plant to support the entirety of its purpose-built data center in João Pessoa, Brazil. The $1.2 million (R5,500,000 BRL) investment in the solar power farm will be able to supply the entire current power infrastructure (1.2MW) of the data center, as well as the 30% expansion due to be completed this year.
This first phase of development features an installation of over 2,000 photovoltaic modules (solar panels) of 540 Watt-Peak across 130,100 square feet on a 15-acre site acquired by HostDime in the state of Paraíba. The plant is expected to generate an average of 122,500 kWh per month, equivalent to the monthly consumption of over 800 Brazilian households.
HostDime’s engineering team adopted MLPE (Module Level Power Electronics) technology, which increases energy efficiency due to shading tolerance and mismatch elimination, as well as offering greater reliability and flexibility. The first-year savings from this project, expected to be ready by July, is estimated to be $35,000/month (R160,000 BRL).
“A data center is a huge consumer of energy inherently due to the nature of the business. Being able to use 100% of this consumption from a clean renewable source is something HostDime is really proud of. We hope to be a technology company aligned with global sustainability goals. This solar plant will ensure our direct energy consumption is being done in a responsible way that we control. To say our entire data center in Brazil is powered by the sun is an impressive accomplishment.” – Filipe Mendes, CEO of HostDime Brazil.
HostDime Brazil’s soon-to-be Tier IV rated facility (it is currently Tier III, but is being converted to Tier IV) is the most certified data center in Latin America, with seals that validate essential resources for excellence in mission-critical operations, such as infrastructure quality, availability, continuous improvement, redundancy, information security, continuity, data privacy management, and customer satisfaction. Continuing this trend, HostDime’s solar farm solidifies to our staff, customers, and the marketplace that environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles are held to the highest importance.
Data centers account for an estimated 1% of worldwide electricity use, so the data center infrastructure industry must be conscious of its responsibilities. ESG considerations are extremely important when designing, constructing, and operating purpose-built data centers. Taking ESG issues seriously maximizes operational efficiencies and reduces overall risks.
For instance, HostDime’s Brazil data center has an average PUE of less than 1.5. PUE stands for Power Usage Effectiveness and it highlights how efficiently a data center uses energy. The PUE is specifically the ratio of total energy delivered to computing equipment. A quick example is if a facility uses 100,000 kW of total power of which 80,000 kW is used to power your IT equipment, this would equal a PUE of 1.25. The lower the PUE, the better. HostDime’s purposeful use of the latest power-efficient electrical components, modular POD footprints, hot aisle containment, highest efficiency chillers, and renewable energy use all correspond to a large reduction in annualized PUE. While we achieve at or under 1.5 PUE in our constructed data centers, our competitors often have PUE in the 1.8 or higher range. Bringing PUE down as low as possible across the data center industry is an obtainable and worthwhile objective.
In addition to the construction of the photovoltaic plant, HostDime has carried out additional actions to improve energy efficiency in its facilities.
HostDime operates its purpose-built data centers in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and the USA. When a data center is built from scratch, it is specifically designed and engineered to provide maximum uptime, security, and usability. This allows for more sustainability measures in building facilities, such as steel frames and drywall composed of seven-layer walls, which generates energy savings in air conditioning.
The majority of retrofitted data centers deploy older Tier II generators, which release smog-forming nitrogen oxides. HostDime’s 2MW generators are Tier IV, which significantly reduce emissions with over 90% less nitrogen oxide and over 90% less particulate matter. These super clean air generators certified by the EPA will meet the high standards for hazardous air pollutants and will help our surrounding environment.
Lastly, the rooftop on HostDime’s upcoming flagship data center and headquarters in Orlando, Florida, will feature high-density solar panels; up to 25% of the facility will be powered by the sun. Taking advantage of the Florida sun and rooftop space will reduce operating costs, lock-in energy costs, and decrease our carbon footprint.
“We are constantly evolving our data center designs and best practices to create energy efficiencies and promote ESG, so that we can build and operate facilities that positively impact the next generations.” – David Vivar, VP of Global Engineering of HostDime Global.
HostDime is a global native carrier-neutral data center infrastructure company operating purpose-built public data center facilities in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and our flagship facility in Florida, USA, and with owned networks in the UK, India, and Hong Kong. HostDime offers an array of cloud-native infrastructure products and services, including physical bare-metal servers, cloud servers, colocation, and Hardware-as-a-Service in all global edge data center locations. HostDime also provides professional managed services on all core products globally.
