Telephone in hand, even on the street, as we speak it appears completely regular to have a look at the pictures of your trip or birthday. Pictures that aren’t saved in your smartphone however on an exterior server by way of the Web. It's the magic of the “Cloud” (cloud).
Nothing magic, nonetheless. To entry these pictures simply and shortly, your information is saved in huge bunkers crammed to the brim with rows of computer systems spanning a number of flooring and a whole bunch of ft lengthy. These are the information facilities (information facilities), a secret world that most of the people typically ignores. These buildings home your private recordsdata and company servers.
Seine-Saint-Denis has probably the most information facilities
The Paris Area Institute printed a examine final December beneath the signature of Cécile Diguet, city planner, to point that “Ile-de-France now has a 3rd of French information facilities. In 2019, there have been 123. They’re largely discovered within the sectors of Saint-Denis, Aubervilliers, La Courneuve (Seine-Saint-Denis). This sector north of Paris has the very best focus of this gear in Europe: round twenty, massive, for a complete of round 100,000 m2 ”.
However the wants are growing and you need to assume greater and larger. The French firm Interxion, big of the sector which manages 56 equipments in Europe and which put in its first information heart in Aubervilliers in 1999, thus carries out a challenge which can exceed all that exists. On the previous Eurocopter web site in La Courneuve, Paris eight will rise by 2021, “the biggest campus in France” based on its president Fabrice Coquio.
The corporate purchased, by way of its actual property companion, the 7 hectares of the previous helicopter producer to construct a constructing the dimensions of the Stade de France alongside the A86. An funding approaching one billion euros!
“And not using a information heart, no YouTube, Fb or Blablacar,” recollects Fabrice Coquio, who insists on the “integration” of this actual constructing within the city setting. “For instance, there can be a 7,500 m2 public park, in addition to housing and workplace house and a second likelihood college within the digital professions. “
The placement was not chosen at random: “no information hub with out connection to the Telecom community, concentrated in massive city and industrial facilities just like the north of Paris, to be instantly operational”, explains the president.
However above all, you want nearly limitless entry to electrical energy. No query that a pc undergoes the slightest blackout that might pester the buyer. Think about that on the top of the transport strike your smartphone is rowing to seek out the visitors forecasts at SNCF …
This very energy-consuming exercise worries
Nothing to do together with your family electrical meter which delivers at greatest a number of kilowatts (KW) even for a big home. For an information heart, we depend in megawatts (MW), a thousand occasions extra! For the final entry into operation at Interxion, rue Rateau, nonetheless in La Courneuve, it’s twice 32 MW. And for Paris eight, we’re speaking about 130 MW, that’s to say as a lot as the facility wanted to attach 60,000 properties!
Cécile Diguet, the creator of the report from the Institut Paris area, wonders about “the sustainability of the native electrical system” with the institution of those behemoths. Particularly since everyone seems to be getting began and desires their share of the electrical cake. Thus, Larger Paris additionally supplies for “small and medium” information facilities positioned in stations or alongside the route of its supermeter.
The exercise of computer systems in batteries is certainly not impartial. The vitality must make them work, and above all to make sure their cooling by way of air con, are removed from negligible. In response to Enterprise France, information heart consumption ought to symbolize 20% of the world's electrical energy by 2025. Knowledge facilities can eat as a lot as a big metropolis.
“We’re drying up capability of the sector”
In response to a doc from the Native Power Company of the Plaine Commune, which dates from 2013, solely 30% of the electrical energy consumed by an information heart is utilized by laptop techniques. The remaining is consumed by cooling gear, then backup (batteries), safety, lighting, and so forth.
For Paris eight, the Interxion firm drew the final MW obtainable on the sector. “We took 50 MW on the supply station of Enedis (EDF) that’s what was left,” confirms the proprietor. However it was nonetheless too little. So Interxion didn’t hesitate to construct its personal 80 MW energy substation in collaboration with RTE, which manages the excessive voltage community in France. A framework ensures: ” capability of the sector is dried up”.
“These information facilities require more and more excessive connection powers,” confirms Patrick Douay, engineer at Enedis, electrical energy provider. However we’re making colossal investments to permit these connections within the time requested by prospects ”
“It is a component of attractiveness for the territories”
Don’t panic, electrical energy won’t fail within the years to come back, however everybody agrees break is required within the north of Paris. “Patrick Braouzec (president of Plaine Commune) informed me that Paris eight would definitely be the final information heart within the sector,” says Fabrice Coquio.
When contacted, the Plaine Commune agglomeration famous that “these facilities have develop into a component of attractiveness for the areas”. However instantly provides: “On the similar time, this gear is synonymous with excessive vitality consumption and nuisance for the neighborhood. We don’t prohibit ourselves from learning new tasks. However this should be performed with the imperatives which are the city integration of this gear, the restoration of the warmth emitted by the information facilities and its reinjection into the heating community, the deployment of areas devoted to city agriculture, the use to inhabitants of the territory for the occupation of sure jobs. “
Electrical consumption isn’t the one disadvantage of those laptop storage giants. Additionally they take up a number of house in a extremely urbanized sector the place the smallest parcel of land is negotiated at excessive costs. The constraints imposed by native authorities to not construct in top (not more than 23 meters excessive in Plaine Commune) oblige these corporations to unfold out in size.
Voices rise towards noise air pollution
Additionally they must retailer substantial portions of gasoline to energy big turbines that would supply vitality within the occasion of an influence outage. To offer an order of magnitude, Paris 7, the information heart of Interxion rue Rateau, has a reserve of 568,000 liters of gasoline oil to feed 12 turbines.
The noise generated by all this gear may also be a supply of nuisance. Residents of Rateau Road had additionally circulated a petition, which even went as far as to cancel the authorization to function the information heart in October 2015 and required changes earlier than the opening.
The principles regarding installations categorized for environmental safety equivalent to information facilities have hardened in recent times. “For my first constructing, within the 2000s, we might set up turbines outdoors, on the roof of the constructing, recollects the president of Interxion. Right now, they’re buried and make no extra noise outdoors than a dishwasher. “
What to do with the warmth given off by these big factories?
Whereas working, the computer systems give off intense warmth which is discharged outdoors these actual factories by way of chimneys at round 28 levels. Methods to recycle this vitality? Connection to a heating community is technically attainable.
One of many first large-scale tasks in France was that of Val-d'Europe in Bailly-Romainvilliers (Seine-et-Marne), close to Disneyland Paris. The warmth, obtained from the cooling of an eight,000 m2 information heart positioned a number of hundred meters from an influence plant and a heating community operated by Dalkia, is recovered by two exchangers. These exchangers provide water at 48 ° C injected into the community.
This datacenter thus heats an aquatic heart and the buildings of a enterprise park. This restoration is worthwhile due to the adequacy between the warmth recoverable within the information heart and the thermal demand of the ZAC. Such units are supported by the State by means of Ademe.
Will the large Paris eight at La Courneuve additionally function an XXL boiler for the neighborhood? Smirec (joint union of warmth vitality networks) which supplies warmth for 54,000 properties in Seine-Saint-Denis and specifically in La Courneuve, would have expressed curiosity, specifically within the context of the set up of recent gear for Olympic Video games. “We’re even prepared to provide our warmth without cost,” says Fabrice Coquio.
