With consumers using their computers more-and-more for heavy duty on-line applications, the need for computer data centers has increased greatly. Data centers are centralized computing facilities that include hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of computers, often arranged into numerous computer racks. Data centers are extremely important to modern computing and are also extremely expensive to build and operate.
Expenses for building data centers include land acquisition and standard building costs for the facility. In addition, thousands of computers and ancillary equipment must be purchased and installed. And electrical and mechanical equipment is needed to power and cool the equipment.
Operation of a data center is expensive because fast computers are needed and fast computers require electricity. As an unfortunate corollary, fast computers turn that electricity into heat, requiring more electricity to eliminate the heat. For example, many buildings use chillers, condensers, evaporators and other energy-consuming devices to cool a facility. And such devices require fans, pumps, and other ancillary electrically-powered equipment.