Yahoo announced on 7th October 2010 that it has begun construction on its next data center in Avenches, Switzerland.
Opening in 2012, the data center will use the company’s existing design that cools the facility with fresh air, rather than using energy-intensive chillers.
Inspired by the heat management principles found in chicken coops, this design was first implemented in Yahoo’s recently opened data center in Lockport, New York. The company also opened a new 180,000 square foot data center in La Vista, Nebraska in February.
However, the Swiss project differs from the Lockport data center in that Yahoo is taking an existing facility and converting it for data center use instead of using factory-built modules, as was the case in Lockport.
“We’re proud of this design because it’s a retrofit of an older structure (build in the ’60s) that will allow operation of YCC technology,” says Scott Noteboom, director of data center operations for Yahoo. “We’ve figured out how to make it work in other situations aside from just pre-engineered structure built from the ground up. The design approach is almost identical in efficiency and approach to what we did in Lockport.”
The Switzerland data center will likely operate at a Power Usage Effectiveness rating of 1.08, which is the same PUE as the Lockport facility, says Noteboom.
In its first major European data center build, Yahoo has been searching the Avenches area for potential sites since 2007.