The Green Man Of Indian Data Center Industry: Leveraging Innovations & Renewable Energy
Sridhar Pinnapureddy, the founder & CEO of CtrlS is redefining the meaning of the word ‘Success’. He firmly believes in what Julia Butterfly Hill said, “You have to hold yourself accountable for your actions and that’s how we’re going to protect the Earth.” Despite being a game-changer of the Indian data center industry, Sridhar is not just making himself accountable for the betterment of our planet earth, but his company CtrlS in all respect is an epitome of ‘green’ and ‘sustainability’. In short, he has become the ‘Green Man’ of the Indian data center industry and is inspiring generations to align their business goals with sustainability to redefine success.Walking The Road Less Travelled
What makes Sridhar a brand to reckon with? It is his commitment to make the world a better and safer place while not distracting even a degree from his vision to provide the best of the services to his global customers. The global data center industry consumes nearly three per cent of the global electricity, which is expected to reach one-fifth of the global electricity consumption and account for 3.2 per cent of total global carbon emissions by 2025. The industry is also accountable for nearly two per cent of the global greenhouse gas emissions, which equals the carbon footprint generated by the global aviation industry and may rise to 14 per cent by 2040.
The data center industry is waking up to realize how negatively their business impacts the climate. But Sridhar has deeply embedded ‘Sustainability’ in CtrlS DNA. To do so, Sridhar has undertaken 200 innovations combined with 25 green initiatives to reduce carbon footprint dependency on fossil fuels, eliminate water and resource wastage, become a paperless office and achieve sustainable outcomes.
Sridhar says, “At CtrlS, we care for planet earth. It is important that we leave behind a healthy planet for our future generations.”
Hence all CtrlS data center buildings are constructed from blocks made from fly ash. It has been deploying eco-friendly organic chemicals with sophisticated online monitoring across its data center facilities in addition to an auto dosing system for cooling tower water treatment.
Gopalakrishnan, MD, GBCI – Southeast Asia & Middle East Markets added, “Sustainability is embedded in the DNA of CtrlS. The company is focused on best practices in energy management, good indoor air quality management, water conservation and efficiency management, waste management, etc. All CtrlS Rated-4 Hyperscale data centers are certified as LEED Platinum v4 O+M by GBCI, setting a benchmark for the data center industry both in India and around the world.”
Sridhar has implemented over 80 innovations in sustainability and energy efficiency. Today, the company operates data centers where electrical, computer, mechanical systems and lighting are designed for maximum energy efficiency and minimal environmental impact by curbing greenhouse gas emissions. The company has embarked on several energy-saving initiatives such as highly efficient power servers and supplies, low power consuming processors, server virtualisation, best cooling practices, chiller plant manager, VFDs for all HVAC equipment, variable Cooling System, CTI approved cooling towers besides other measures.
CtrlS has also built India’s first solar panel covered data center & 100 per cent air pollution free data center and has also deployed Asia’s largest Gas Insulated Substation (GIS) while it is building 500-acre of solar farm to replace fossil fuel dependency. Because of such efforts, CtrlS Datacenter is crowned with being the world’s first Leader in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) platinum-certified green data center. Sridhar runs India’s largest number of rated-4 hyperscale green data centers certified by US Green Building Council (USGBC) Under Sridhar’s leadership, the company has won Energy Efficiency Awards for 10 consecutive years.
Apart from the above-mentioned efforts, CtrlS also carries out several energy-saving initiatives like highly efficient power servers and supplies, low power consuming processors, server virtualization, best cooling practices, chiller plant manager, VFDs for all HVAC equipment, variable cooling system, CTI approved cooling towers besides several other measures. The company is also optimizing its storage capacity with the use of energy efficient storage devices, de-duplication & compression, load balancing, reducing power
density requirements, eliminating redundant data and several others. Such efforts have resulted in a low PUE of 1.35. CtrlS also undergoes regular Ashrae audits to identify areas of energy inefficiency improvement.
As a measure to curb dependency on fossil fuels, the company is betting high on solar energy. Its Mumbai based hyperscale data center is India’s largest solar plant deployed on its exteriors with 1.3 MW installed capacity generating 1.8 million units of power every year, offsetting Co2 emissions by 620 tons/year. On the other hand, its Bangalore facility has 30 KW solar plant operational. As the company aims to run 85 per cent of its power requirements through renewable energy, it is building a 500-acre of solar plant to generate solar power ranging between 300 to 500 MW.
Turning Challenges Into Opportunity
While many data center providers feared entering into Noida, which is infamous for frequent earthquakes and poorest air quality, Sridhar dared to turned this challenge into a business opportunity. He built India’s first 100% quake-proof data center, which can withstand any natural calamity including earthquakes measuring 8 or above on the Richter scale. Complying with zone-5 standards, the CtrlS Noida facility has two active power feeds from two separate EHV substations with Active + Active feeds has resulted in the industry’s highest uptime guarantee of 99.995 per cent.
The Noida data center is also India’s first 100 per cent air pollution free facility. It has installed an air filtration plant to process the contaminated air, scrub it and then release the clean air into the data center. This keeps the servers, storage devices, networking components and other devices within the facility in a healthy state. It provides Sulphur free air through airtight envelop H2S and SO2, with double-layered perimeter walls, air scrubbers, +ve pressurized system along with treated fresh air system.
CtrlS also has stormwater harvesting at all its facilities, which recycles nearly 70-90 per cent of water. With such initiatives and more, the company has eliminated over 2,25,000 metric tons of CO2, recycled nearly 10 billion litres of water, reduced 95 per cent of paper usage saving 10,000 plus trees, and displacement of carbon equivalent to 149,172 cars driven in the last 900 days, 77,225 tonnes of battery waste and 2.35 tonnes of e-waste recycled/ disposed off in an environmental-friendly manner, and 18.5 Gwh of annual savings through its energy conservation methods.
“Ctrls Noida facility has two active power feeds from two separate EHV substations with active + active feeds has resulted in the industry’s highest uptime guarantee of 99.995 per cent. The Noida data center is also India’s first 100 per cent air pollution free facility”
Journey Of The Green Man – Past And Future
Today’s Green Man of the Indian data center industry had quite a humble beginning. He started his entrepreneurial journey with just Rs.20,000, a second-hand computer, a Fax machine and three working tables. Today Sridhar leads a $250 million Pioneer Group comprising of Pioneer e-Labs, CtrlS Datacenter Ltd, Cloud4C, Schnabel and other group companies. He has been recognized for his work in business and social initiatives and is honoured with several awards including EY Business Leader of the Year Award – 2015, TV5 Business Leader Award – 2015, SI Entrepreneur of the Year Award – 2014, Rajiv Gandhi Shiromani by Global Economic Council, Best Entrepreneur of the Year by ATA, and many more.
According to Sridhar, he has just begun the green journey. His vision is to use near 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030 (or as per permissible limit by Govt.) across all CtrlS datacenter facilities, install onsite solar on new buildings to reduce carbon footprint, while using 50 per cent of recycled water in the next twenty four to thirty six months in the Mumbai data center. The company has established a waste disposal program. Indeed, every step he takes forward is towards ensuring a green and healthy planet safe for IT infrastructure and humans alike.
May the dream of Sridhar, ‘The Green Man of Indian Datacenter Industry’ of creating and handing over a beautiful planet to the next generation come true.
As a measure to curb dependency on fossil fuels, the company is betting high on solar energy. Its Mumbai based hyperscale data center is India’s largest solar plant deployed on its exteriors with 1.3 MW installed capacity generating 1.8 million units of power every year, offsetting Co2 emissions by 620 tons/year. On the other hand, its Bangalore facility has 30 KW solar plant operational. As the company aims to run 85 per cent of its power requirements through renewable energy, it is building a 500-acre of solar plant to generate solar power ranging between 300 to 500 MW.
Turning Challenges Into Opportunity
While many data center providers feared entering into Noida, which is infamous for frequent earthquakes and poorest air quality, Sridhar dared to turned this challenge into a business opportunity. He built India’s first 100% quake-proof data center, which can withstand any natural calamity including earthquakes measuring 8 or above on the Richter scale. Complying with zone-5 standards, the CtrlS Noida facility has two active power feeds from two separate EHV substations with Active + Active feeds has resulted in the industry’s highest uptime guarantee of 99.995 per cent.
Ctrls has also built India’s first solar panel covered data center & 100 per cent air pollution free data center and has also deployed Asia’s largest gas insulated substation (GIS)while it is building 500-acre of solar farm to replace fossil fuel dependency
The Noida data center is also India’s first 100 per cent air pollution free facility. It has installed an air filtration plant to process the contaminated air, scrub it and then release the clean air into the data center. This keeps the servers, storage devices, networking components and other devices within the facility in a healthy state. It provides Sulphur free air through airtight envelop H2S and SO2, with double-layered perimeter walls, air scrubbers, +ve pressurized system along with treated fresh air system.
CtrlS also has stormwater harvesting at all its facilities, which recycles nearly 70-90 per cent of water. With such initiatives and more, the company has eliminated over 2,25,000 metric tons of CO2, recycled nearly 10 billion litres of water, reduced 95 per cent of paper usage saving 10,000 plus trees, and displacement of carbon equivalent to 149,172 cars driven in the last 900 days, 77,225 tonnes of battery waste and 2.35 tonnes of e-waste recycled/ disposed off in an environmental-friendly manner, and 18.5 Gwh of annual savings through its energy conservation methods.
“Ctrls Noida facility has two active power feeds from two separate EHV substations with active + active feeds has resulted in the industry’s highest uptime guarantee of 99.995 per cent. The Noida data center is also India’s first 100 per cent air pollution free facility”
Journey Of The Green Man – Past And Future
Today’s Green Man of the Indian data center industry had quite a humble beginning. He started his entrepreneurial journey with just Rs.20,000, a second-hand computer, a Fax machine and three working tables. Today Sridhar leads a $250 million Pioneer Group comprising of Pioneer e-Labs, CtrlS Datacenter Ltd, Cloud4C, Schnabel and other group companies. He has been recognized for his work in business and social initiatives and is honoured with several awards including EY Business Leader of the Year Award – 2015, TV5 Business Leader Award – 2015, SI Entrepreneur of the Year Award – 2014, Rajiv Gandhi Shiromani by Global Economic Council, Best Entrepreneur of the Year by ATA, and many more.
According to Sridhar, he has just begun the green journey. His vision is to use near 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030 (or as per permissible limit by Govt.) across all CtrlS datacenter facilities, install onsite solar on new buildings to reduce carbon footprint, while using 50 per cent of recycled water in the next twenty four to thirty six months in the Mumbai data center. The company has established a waste disposal program. Indeed, every step he takes forward is towards ensuring a green and healthy planet safe for IT infrastructure and humans alike.
May the dream of Sridhar, ‘The Green Man of Indian Datacenter Industry’ of creating and handing over a beautiful planet to the next generation come true.
