Can you point me to some information on your Datacenter performance or methodology? I'd be really interested to see how you are managing a 1.04 PUE!
The technology is SGI ICE cube air containers.
http://www.ansys.stuba.sk/2011/pdf/SGI/ICE%20CUBE%20AIR_4274.pdf
Our PUE is even better than 1.04 over the full year. I did not check the latest data.
Yep, evaporatively cooled - no magic there unless you are doing something special with the DX system?
The reason I've mentioned data centers sited near the arctic circle (not hyperbole!) is, if you are running an ultra efficient datacenter (1.04 counts) that is not using 100% free cooling then you are likely are using potable water (your tech looks way too cookie cutter to be reusing wastewater?) to run the system. This practice is still contributing to the large and growing problem associated with water cooled chillers and evaporative cooling.
By using the rapidly shrinking reserves of potable water on the planet
and relying on the undervaluation of the water/energy nexus. Unfortunately your 1.04 PUE is really relying on economic efficiencies that are directly related to devaluing water and ignoring its energy content based on its requirement for life and health as a subsidized and regulated utility. Pumping, treating, storing and transporting water have very high energy cost that are not yet being passed down to the end user and, therefore, not well accounted for in PUE or the broader economy.
If you want to get closer to numbers that represent the full impacts of computing I would suggest trying Energy Reuse Effectiveness (ERE) instead of PUE. See page 8 of this Green Grid paper:
http://www.thegreengrid.org/~/media/WhitePapers/ERE_WP_101510_v2.pdf an page 11: "The concept and application of PUE has been beneficial to the industry but also challenging on occasion, due to misuse. ERE is a more precisely defined metric than PUE was in its first white paper." ERE helps define the value of used and recovered energy on and off the datacenter, NREL and Notre Dame have both been involved in the development of ERE.
CA datacenters are already under fire for water consumption, here is a (somewhat) positive article on the topic, there are many negative articles begining to circulate:
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-06-30/let-data-centers-have-their-water I can't imagine how datacenters are going to come under scrutiny in parts of Asia/India where potable water is already a major issue.
By comparison, the system we envision does not use water for cooling - it uses existing heating loads for cooling - so there is no associated water use in the design. There is also less water use in the macro because we can eliminate the single use of electricity (and the power plant cooling costs associated) for compute or heat. There is actually a reason it is called Project Exergy.