Global - Technology - Review

Facebook have announced their plan to build a huge server farm on the edge of the arctic circle. WIth recent hikes in energy prices, companies are looking for ways to reduce the energy consumption required to cool their banks of servers.

Lulea which lies 62 miles south of the arctic circle has an average temperature of just 2C which means that the use of costly airconditioning is greatly reduced. Even though they will rely on air cooling to keep the servers running, they will still require 120MW of power, which is equivalent to the demand of 16,000 detached homes.