Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Commerce, the National Government Offices Administration, China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, and the National Energy Administration jointly announced the list of 2020 National Green Data Centers in China, and Hefei Data Center of Postal Savings Bank of China (hereinafter referred to as PSBC) became one of the 60 national green data centers on the list.

To accelerate the construction of green data centers and lead them to take an efficient, low-carbon, intensive, and circular green development path, the above-mentioned six authorities jointly organized the 2020 National Green Data Center recommendation and selection work, and finally certified 60 energy-efficient, technologically advanced, well-managed and representative national green data centers in communications, Internet, public institutions, energy, finance and other fields.

Actively responding to national requirements for the construction of green data centers, PSBC’s data center continues to fulfill the social responsibilities of saving energy, reducing emission and sustainable development. Since the beginning of the project, the center has consistently adhered to the new development philosophy and strengthened the green design, procurement and construction in accordance with the requirements for high-quality development and with the aim of improving the green development level of the data center. It has continuously carried out green operation and maintenance, and tapped the potential of energy saving to improve energy and resource utilization efficiency and enable the sustainable and sound development of the data center.

In the design and construction phase, Hefei Data Center of PSBC began to select energy-efficient infrastructure products and solutions. High-voltage electricity is transmitted directly to the building to reduce line loss in the electrical system. Efficient and energy-saving water-cooled air-conditioning and natural cooling solutions are used in the HVAC system. A sophisticated monitoring system, which can conduct statistical analyses on energy and resource utilization, is equipped to provide data support for energy saving in operation and maintenance. In the initial stage of operation, the center, taking advantage of the low load of IT system in this stage, adopted energy-saving measures in its refrigeration system, for example, storing the cold energy for energy saving, adjusting the water flow of the system and optimizing air distribution in the server room, which eventually saved about 1.976 million kWh of electricity a year. With the increasing load of the IT system, the center continuously tapped the energy-saving potential of the refrigeration system according to the load changes and operating rules. It reduced energy consumption of the air-conditioning system by adjusting the mode to slow down the air-conditioning speed, reached a better energy efficiency range by adding a secondary pump to convert the operation mode from “single unit with high frequency” into “dual unit with low frequency”, and reduced the loss of cold capacity by adjusting the operation mode of the cold storage tank. Thus, energy consumption was reduced, and a total of 1.135 million kWh of electricity was saved a year.

Hefei Data Center of PSBC also adopted AI technology. It built an AI energy efficiency management system and used AI algorithms such as machine learning and deep learning to adjust the operating parameters of refrigeration equipment in real time, thus gradually realizing the global optimum control and further saving more power. In 2020, the average PUE of the center was at the advanced level of data centers in the financial industry.

It is understood that the data center of PSBC will continue to actively respond to the requirements of the government and regulatory authorities for the construction of green data centers, fully embrace new technologies represented by the Internet of Things and AI, and continue to build it into a green, efficient, intelligent and advanced smart data center, thereby making positive contributions to the green development.