Barclays data centres get green with HP

Barclays is using cutting-edge cooling technology in its new Gloucester data centre to help reduce the bank's energy bill and carbon footprint.

The technology is expected to reduce energy costs by 13.4 per cent and save approximately 7,470 tonnes of CO2 per year.

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Elaine Heyworth, head of environmental management for Barclays retail and commercial banking, told silicon.com: "When we started on the data centre project we were looking for a solution that would help with our energy management."

The HP Dynamic Smart Cooling system avoids cooling an entire warehouse of servers by using sensors on each server rack to focus cooling where it's needed most.

Heyworth said: "Each sensor comes back into a central console and if a server is working harder in one area than in another, this sensor will tell the central console: 'Oi, I'm working a little bit harder, please cool me down a little bit more'.

"So what it has allowed us to do is stop cooling huge amounts of empty space and direct the cooling that we need exactly to the right point in the data centre."

Heyworth said all Barclays' data centres will use the cooling technology in the future.

Barclays Group chairman Marcus Agius said energy management is at "the heart of our technology infrastructure" and that the work with HP will be an important step in delivering the organisation's green targets.

Barclays aims to reduce carbon emissions by 20 per cent between 2000 and 2010 and energy consumption by the same amount from 2005 to 2010.