The Gathering Storm Climate Change and Data Center Resiliency

RISK &
RESILIENCY
UI Intelligence report 41
The gathering storm:

Climate change and data
center resiliency
Author
Andy Lawrence, Executive Director of Research, Uptime Institute
Extreme weather events have become significantly more

common and more severe in recent years — a pattern
likely to continue for many decades to come. This
report discusses the implications for data center
owners and operators.
UII-41 v1.1 published November 2, 2020 last updated February 16, 2021
Climate change and data center resiliency
This Uptime Institute Intelligence report includes:
Key findings 3
About this report (methodology) 3
Introduction 4
Scope of risks 4
Sector preparedness 5
Climate change and pandemic planning 7
Direct site risks 8

Sustained high temperature 9
Flood 9
Wildfire 10
Regional impacts 11
Connectivity disruption 12
Utility interruption 13
Drought/water shortage 13
Structural and secondary responses 15

New builds and site selection 17
Government and planning oversight 17
Operational resources and costs 18
Move to cloud and colocation 19
Advice and strategy: Ten actions to consider 19

Know the weather 19
Conduct regular risk assessments 20
Harden the data center against extreme weather 20
Monitor risks, create a dashboard 21
Act early when weather threatens 21
Spread risk 21
Pay attention to IT, not just Facilities 22
Consider water as important as power 22
Link sustainability and resiliency 22
Invest in remote monitoring and management 22
Summary 23
Endnotes 24
About the author 25
© COPYRIGHT 2020 UPTIME I NS TITUTE . A L L R I GHTS R E S E RV E D 2
KEY FINDINGS
• Climate change will require many organizations to rethink and renew their overall resiliency
strategies. Actions may include increasing site resiliency; upgrading backup and disaster
recovery processes to real-time availability zones; and upgrading out-of-region backup
capabilities.
• Although the risk of many weather-related incidents may seem low, all sites should be regularly
reviewed. Extreme weather events are becoming more severe, more frequent, and are occurring
in areas where they were hitherto not seen.
• Climate change risks are not confined to single sites. Risks extend to regional infrastructure,
partners, utilities and, beyond that, to wider changes that may add costs and administrative
burdens (e.g., increased governance/reporting requirements, a need to strengthen supply
chains, and enforced technology changes).
• Increasingly, water use will be restricted in many regions, which will likely cause friction
between large data center operator/builders and local communities. This may lead to lower
water use but higher energy consumption.
• Data center weather risk assessments should include an economic analysis. Increasing
resiliency increases costs. Insurance premium increases and climate change investments will
become a significant operating cost factor in some locations.
• Data center locations will need to be re-evaluated on a regular basis to determine overall
appetite for additional investment and long-term viability.
• The threat of extreme weather disruption may increase the speed of migration to public cloud
and colocation environments, as part of a risk-reduction strategy.
• The global COVID-19 pandemic introduced direct and indirect risks to data center infrastructure,
some of which are similar to the risks from climate change. Both threats may, therefore,
coincide to reinforce the need for review and investment.
• The energy efficiency of IT equipment — which has been given scant regard by virtually all save
hyperscale operators — will become a new focus of attention as pressure to reduce the impact
of climate change grows.
• Cooling design points for prolonged heat will often be exceeded, necessitating augmented
cooling. This will especially affect free cooling systems.
• Corporate sustainability and resiliency are separate but linked. Legislation to curb climate
change will increasingly focus on industries that are perceived to be polluting, placing
restrictions and imposing costs that could affect technology choices and resiliency.
About this report (methodology)

This advisory report has been prepared by the Uptime Institute (UI) Intelligence team. The report draws on
information and insights from Uptime’s internal researchers, engineers and consultants in more than 20 countries,
along with data, advisory reports and data prepared by other organizations and governments. This report updates
and replaces UI Intelligence report number 20, A mission-critical industry unprepared for climate change.
Note: Uptime Institute’s research and consultancy teams accept the scientific consensus that climate change and
the resulting extreme weather events are real and are the result of human activity. Not everyone in the data center
industry agrees. This report focuses on the impacts of and mitigation for extreme weather events, not on the
causes of such events.

Introduction
Extreme weather events have become significantly more common and
more severe in recent years — a pattern likely to continue for many
decades to come. This report discusses the implications for data
center owners and operators.
To date, the data center sector has taken a quietly confident
approach. While sustainability or green initiatives (such as buying
carbon credit) feature heavily in the marketing materials of many
operators, the threat of extreme weather to continued operations has
received far less attention. Uptime Institute research suggests this is
largely because the risks from weather-related events was assessed
very thoroughly at the site selection stage — and because no or very
few incidents have arisen since. Some complacency may have set in.
But the trend is clear: data center facilities, designed for a working life
of perhaps 20 years, are often operated for far longer; the weather is
changing rapidly, and the past is no longer a predictor of the future.
The frequency of previously rare events – 100-year or even 500-
year weather events – has changed, with occurrences twice or even
three times in a year or two. Floods have reached basements where
generators were sited, leading to power outages and data center
downtime in Europe and New York. Electricity substations that power
data centers have been turned off for days at a time in California, due
to wildfire risk. Cooling systems have been overwhelmed by extreme
heat in temperate London. Water shortages have led to evaporative
cooling restrictions in Spain.
The pattern is set — the storm is gathering.
Scope of risks
Climate change is a divisive topic. Not everybody is convinced by
the evidence for anthropogenic climate change, while others are
passionate and impatient for action.
In this report, we make only one assumption: Extreme weather

events/conditions (e.g., floods, storms, droughts) have become
more severe and more common in recent years — a pattern likely to
continue for the next several decades. We do not discuss the causes
or extent of these changes. Given this, it is clear at least some critical
infrastructure is at risk, and that mitigation and adaption will be
necessary.
Our focus is on the data center and its ecosystem. However, this
ecosystem is far-reaching, and managers must therefore consider

a wide scope of risks. Networks and power grids, for example, are
critical, and each has its own vulnerabilities — but they are mostly
beyond the control of data center managers. Similarly, the supply
chain reaches across the world, and weather events sometimes affect
global availability of components for months.
In this report, we discuss three areas we believe require management

attention, if risk is to be sufficiently tracked and managed:
• Site-level risks - Risks to the local site from an extreme weather

event or a sustained change in conditions (e.g., sea level rise).
These risks will vary in severity and type from site to site.
• Regional risks - Risks to the local region that are not directly
site related. These are often overlooked but can affect supplies,
utilities, staff and access.
• Sector disruption and change - Some of the effects of climate

change will be secondary — affecting governance, costs, and
technology and site preferences, for example. These changes
may have been happening anyway but will be accelerated or
strengthened by the climate change threat. Some of these may
be opportunities; others may be risks only if not addressed.
Sector preparedness
From inception, all data centers are subject to a thorough site
suitability survey and are designed and built to reduce/manage all risks
from earthquake, flood, subsidence, and many other factors. These
assessments are conducted by the lead engineers, overseen by the
authority having jurisdiction and sometimes verified by organizations
such as Uptime Institute.
In all but a few cases, these surveys cover risks from possible, probable,
and even very rare events, such as floods, wildfire and earthquakes.
Most engineering firms will follow established guidelines and standards
that reduce the likelihood of site damage or outages to a minimum.
Managers obviously have less control over factors beyond their own
sites, and still less certainly over sector trends or technology shifts, but
they should be mindful of these.
The challenge for all operators is that the likelihood and the severity
of extreme weather is increasing. A data center constructed in 2010,
for example, will likely have used data that far underestimates current
risks. For example: A data center designed to last 20 years, in an area
that flooded once every 500 years, might have had a 0.2 percent risk of
a flood in any year of its life based on data available in 2010. This risk
might now be once every 100 years — meaning that the risk is now one
percent, a 20 percent rise in its planned lifetime.

Technology choices can also significantly increase or decrease

vulnerability. In this area, even more regular re-assessment may be
necessary, because some technologies may be operated with much
narrower safety margins than the building itself. Economization cooling
capacity, which requires an ideal operating envelope based on outside
temperature, humidity and internally generated heat, can easily run up
against its design limits, requiring the rapid addition of extra cooling
capacity.
How well prepared, and how resilient, is the data center sector generally?
Uptime Institute’s 2018 and 2019 global survey findings present a
mixed picture, with a minority taking important steps to address
the risk from climate change/extreme weather events, such as re-
evaluating technology choices, mitigating flood risks, and making other
preparations (see Figure 1). But in 2019 we added another answer option
for this question, and the results were telling: almost a third of operators
responded that they had not reviewed their risks recently and have no
plans to do so.
Certain types of operator, and operators in certain industries are more

likely to pay attention to climate risks (see Table 1). This is not surprising;
they represent industries that face the greatest financial or other
business consequences should they suffer failures. (Separately, Uptime
Institute shows that colocation companies generally operate newer data
centers than enterprises and are more likely to be planning new builds.
These operators are therefore more likely to have lower risk profiles
related to climate change.)

TABLE 1. COLOS REPORT HIGHER LEVELS OF CLIMATE CHANGE PREPARATION
Is your organization revising policies and/or planning to revise data center policies to adapt to climate change? Select all that apply.
Colocation Telecom Financial Software/Cloud Industry

(%) (%) services services* average
(%) (%) (%)
81 60 61 57 55
Preparing for
climate change
Willing to
re-evaluate
technology 54 33 33 32 33
selection
* The Software/Cloud services group includes public cloud operators, software as a service operators, and other software suppliers using colocation space or their own
data centers.
Source: Uptime Institute Global Survey of IT and Data Center Managers 2018 (n=709)
Climate change The risks associated with global pandemics and those from climate
change are not directly related. However, both represent sets of risks
and pandemic that have some commonalities:

• Both present some new challenges that may not have been fully
planning foreseen when the data center was commissioned and that are
only now being incorporated into resiliency planning.
• Both have similar impacts that may require similar responses.
These include:
• Possible disruption to site access (encouraging remote
management and automation).
• Possible disruption to staff well-being and availability
(encouraging remote management and automation).
• Possible disruption to services companies and maintenance.
• Possible disruption to supply chains, especially shipments from
remote locations.
• Possible disruption to utilities (the pandemic has caused some
power disruptions due to staffing issues).
• Increased government oversight due to reliance on the data
center sector and concerns over resiliency.
For these reasons, therefore, managers considering investments to
mitigate the effects of extreme weather should also consider that they
might be simultaneously improving resiliency against the impacts of a
pandemic or other risks (for example, there may be other reasons for
site access denial, such as civil unrest).

Direct site risks

Table 2 outlines risks/damages to a data center site that may result
from extreme weather incidents (e.g., heatwave) or from gradual climate
change (e.g., rising water table over time). While some facilities may
experience none of these and are well sited and protected, others will be
vulnerable to more than one.
Table 2. Extreme weather/climate change: Site risks to critical infrastructure
Risk Site impacts (primary)
• Damage to equipment, cabling

Flooding — flash/pluvial • Electrical risks
• Staff and engineer safety and access

• Electrical risks
Flooding — coastal/tidal • Staff and engineer safety and access
• Salt damage
• Risk of frequent repetition
• Ground water contamination

Flooding — erosion, contamination • Structural scouring, silt accumulation
• Damage from flying objects, trees, etc.

• Danger to staff
Wind, storm
• Unstable electricity grid/loss of utility power
• Roof collapse due to extreme rain
• Restricted water for cooling (chilled, evaporative)

Drought
• Subsidence
• Insufficient economization cooling capacity

• Insufficient mechanical cooling capacity
Sustained high temperature
• Utility power instability due to very high demand
• Health/safety breaches for working temperatures
• Evaporative cooling becomes impractical

Sustained high humidity
• Risks to equipment due to insufficient dehumidification
• Direct risk of fire to data centers — especially edge

• Smoke/particle contamination reducing use of air economization
• Ash entering equipment/clogging fuel filters
Dry weather/wildfire
• Staff unable to access site
• Utilities turning off substations/telco towers
• Water use restricted
Source: Uptime Institute Intelligence 2020

Although the risk of many weather-related incidents may seem low,

all sites should be regularly reviewed. Extreme weather events are
becoming more severe, more frequent, and are occurring in areas where
they were hitherto not seen.
Below we discuss some of the risks described in Table 2 in greater detail.
Sustained high The risks associated with global pandemics and those from climate
Increasing summer temperatures have put a strain on the cooling of
temperature many data centers, and this is likely to worsen in the years ahead. Data
centers in several cities have been forced to add mechanical (direct
expansion, or DX) cooling capacity to their economizer (free air cooling)
systems. In extremis, some data centers have been forced to hose down
heat exchangers.
Maps and estimates for the number of free cooling hours in a location
should be regularly reviewed, as they change as new information
becomes available. The Green Grid has published regional maps, but
such resources may not include granular local data. Therefore, a site-
specific analysis is advised.
Extended high temperatures, coupled with humidity, have a significant
impact on the viability and the return on investment of some
technologies. An outdoor air temperature increase of as little as four
degrees Fahrenheit (two degrees Celsius) could make free air and
evaporative systems ineffective on their own, and uneconomical in some
situations.
Beyond that, high temperatures might also be associated with droughts
(discussed below).
Flood Most data center facilities have a low risk of flooding. The great majority
are outside the 100-year flood plain and, following accepted standards,
most are more than half a mile (0.8 kilometer) from coastal or significant
inland waterways. There are many industry standards to help guide low-
risk site selection. Most engineers are likely to advise siting outside the
500-year flood plain.
But the risks have been rising, and good site selection and good data
center design may not necessarily prove enough in the decades ahead.
In the US, the Northeast, Midwest and Great Plains states, for example,
have experienced large increases in heavy precipitation and runoff that
exceeds the capacity of storm drains and levees in recent years, causing
flooding events and accelerated erosion. Changes in precipitation
patterns have been recorded on all continents.
While the risk to operations, staff and equipment at the immediate
site from flooding is obvious, the impact of the difficulties in the wider
region is often given insufficient attention. Floods can damage telecom
equipment in the surrounding area; can cause hydroelectric dams to
shut down; can block roads and fuel deliveries; can damage electricity

substations and electrical switchgear (30 percent of switchgear failures

are caused by moisture/water); and can lead to staffing problems during
an emergency.
Risks from sea level rises, especially during storms, have scarcely begun
to make their mark but certainly will in years to come. While the burden
of ensuring protection against sea level rise will fall on municipal and
state authorities, the threat will persist, recur regularly, and will worsen
until adequate protections have been put in place. Operators cannot
assume the political resolve, finances or capability will manifest to save
them from this threat.
Rising sea levels also threaten freshwater supplies. Salinification of fresh
water caused by flooding will reduce supplies for domestic and industrial
consumption — including data center consumption (cooling systems
cannot be easily adapted to use salt water).
Wildfire To ensure clean, inexpensive electricity, many data centers are sited near
hydroelectric power sources. That generally means nearby mountains
and forests — areas increasingly at risk of wildfire in an age of climate
change.
Road closures and the evacuation of towns in the path of the fire could
pose immediate risks to staffing levels: workers may not be able to get to
the site or may need to deal with their own emergency situations.
There are other risks as well. Wildfires could burn transmission lines,
interrupting the flow of power to the facility. Post-fire, burn scar erosion
can cause landslides that take out fiber cable — sometimes in multiple
areas and in so doing, thwart redundancies. With climate change, the
risks extend beyond the imminent, and preparation is key. At least one
power company — PG&E, in California — has adopted a policy of pre-
emptively interrupting service to at-risk areas when forecasts indicate
conditions may increase the risk of wildfire (e.g., high winds in an already
hot, dry environment).
On-site power generation is one option data center operators might
consider as a hedge against uncertain utility power supplies. However,
a smooth transition to on-site power is never a given, no matter the
amount of preparation. As a result, utility power outages — planned or
unplanned — increase the risk of failure for data center operators.
Facility managers need to consider not only their risk from the direct line
of fire but also from blown embers. Wind-blown embers can spark dry
grasses at fence lines, collect near fuel tanks and even ignite employee
vehicles in the parking lot.
Facilities many miles away from an active wildfire can be affected by it,
potentially for weeks at a time. Ash and other particulates may find their
way into the facility via the ventilation system or can be transported into
the facility on workers’ clothes, maintenance tool kits, equipment and
more.

Engine generators — which may well be pressed into service — pose

particular concerns. Most have filters on the combustion air intake (and
those will likely need to be replaced more often than usual), but there is
rarely any filtration on the intake for the engine cooling.
The fuel storage tanks and the fuel itself also require attention. Almost
all diesel tanks are atmospheric types, which means they have vents.
These vents allow air into the tanks when fuel is withdrawn and allow a
path for air to escape when fuel is added. With the anticipated increased
generator operation, the vents will be pulling in more air — which means
ash can get into the tanks.
The cooling system of almost all facilities will be affected in some
way. Condenser units for air conditioners, air cooled chillers, or cooling
towers are all susceptible to ash in the air, as it will either contaminate
the water in a cooling tower or clog condenser coils. This will result in
less cooling capacity, and backup units may be similarly affected. Direct
air-cooled data centers need to monitor air quality and adjust their filter
maintenance schedules as conditions dictate.
Note that flooding, landslides and mudflow may be more likely after
forest fires.
Regional impacts
Table 3 outlines risks to data center operations that may result from
extreme weather conditions/incidents affecting an entire region. These
may range from extended drought to a big storm or hurricane. In these
instances, the individual site may be well prepared and protected, but
support services, supplies and staff may be affected, possibly severely.
Clearly, in extreme events, site and regionwide impacts will have to
be countered. To reiterate: Although the risk of many weather-related
incidents may seem low, all sites should be regularly reviewed. Extreme
weather events are becoming more severe, more frequent, and are
occurring in areas where they were hitherto not seen.

Table 3. Extreme weather/climate change: Regional risks to critical infrastructure
Risk Impacts
• Damage to roads, supply facilities

• Staff endangered, unable to access site
Flooding — flash/pluvial
• Electric utility services disabled/damaged
• Supply chains (fuel, services, parts) disrupted
• Damage to roads, supply facilities

• Staff endangered, unable to access site
Flooding — coastal/tidal • Electric utility services disabled/damaged
• Supply chains (fuel, services, parts) disrupted
• High risk of repetition
• Ground water contamination

• Building damage to suppliers, utilities
Flooding — erosion, contamination
• Erosion (roads, hillsides, etc.)
• Repeated disruption for staff, suppliers
• Damage to utility/telco towers, masts, aerial cabling

• Danger to staff/staff unable to access site
Wind, storm
• Unstable electricity grid/loss of utility power
• Disrupted supply chains (fuel, services, parts)
• Restricted water for cooling

Drought
• Insufficient water flow for hydroelectric power
• Health/safety issues for staff

Sustained high temperature
• Utility power instability due to very high demand
• Danger to life, loss of infrastructure

• Heat/smoke/particle contamination damaging utility equipment
Dry weather/wildfire
• Staff disrupted/unable to access site
• Utilities turning off substations/telco towers
Below we discuss some of these risks in greater detail.
Connectivity A recent study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

and the University of Oregon documented the vulnerability of fiber optic
disruption cable to rising seawater levels. Cable landing stations may be at risk
of rising sea levels and storms. They noted that a significant amount
of digital infrastructure will be affected over the coming years and
cautioned that mitigation planning should begin immediately.
According to the study, more than 3,600 miles of fiber in the US will be
underwater in less than 15 years, independent of the impact of storm
surges. In addition, many telco central offices (small switching centers)

are in small data centers in vulnerable locations. For these reasons,

connectivity should be included in climate risk assessments.
Utility Utilities are equipped to deal with storms, rain, floods and heatwaves.
Despite this, weather events do, regularly, cause power outages on the
interruption grid. All utilities have considerable amounts of remote and exposed
infrastructure. Storms and water are the most common cause of
electricity outages — but even heat can cause problems, due to extremely
high demand. Those data center operators using natural gas (fuel cells)
are less threatened, but failures have occurred.
Most data centers are protected by their uninterruptible power supplies
and generators — but this protection becomes vulnerable if fuel supplies
are interrupted during regionwide events. Securing access to fuel
supplies and other maintenance services proved the biggest challenge
during the Superstorm Sandy event.
Drought/water Long dry periods, now commonly reported in certain regions throughout
the world, can present serious issues for infrastructure, industry and data
shortage center operators. The United Nations predicts that, by 2025, two-thirds of
the world’s population will live in water-stressed conditions.
Water use by data centers is difficult to assess, because of the wide
variety of technologies involved in cooling (power and water can
effectively be traded-off). Industry estimates suggest that data centers
use 5-8 million gallons (US) of water per megawatt of total power each
year.1 Uptime Institute calculates a one megawatt chilled water system
uses 6.75 million gallons a year; DX systems, of course, will not use
water, but will require more power.2 Other air cooled and evaporative
systems are likely to cost more and require either water or mechanical
support during hot/humid periods.
According to Time Magazine, “In 2019 alone, Google requested, or was
granted, more than 2.3 billion gallons of water for data centers in three
different states” — a level of use that has brought it into conflict with
local suppliers. In total, Google’s 2018 environmental report (released in
2019) shows global use of 4,170 million gallons.
In comparison, Uptime data (Figure 2) shows half of the operators
responding to our 2020 global survey do not even monitor water use.

The chief effect of the growing number of shortages is that water will
become an evermore precious resource. Under these conditions, water
utilities and regulators commonly take two actions: raise the price of
water, to discourage consumption; and place restrictions on how much
can be used, and for what purpose.
Water costs today are generally so low that price rises do not alter the
behavior of data center operators, although the recent introduction of
water futures trading on Wall Street demonstrates that might change.
Restrictions on water use are another matter. Shortages of water are a
major issue in data center hubs in California, Singapore, Spain, United
Arab Emirates, Australia and, periodically, in many other regions of the
world. In Singapore, concerns about the impact of new data centers on
both power and water supplies have led to a significant tightening of
planning laws. In Europe, Spanish planning authorities are concerned
over the use of water-intensive cooling and may restrict use of systems
that consume too much water. New builders may face legal challenges
as they try to negotiate guaranteed water supplies.
What can data center operators do about water use? There are no easy,
cheap solutions for existing data centers, and new data center builders
may have to make uncomfortable trade-offs that could lead to a rise in
power consumption.
One solution may be to employ direct liquid cooling, which uses closed
loop coolants circulating directly inside the system (chip, board or inside
the rack). Although this does not eliminate the need for heat exchange,
the efficiency is far higher than that of air cooling.
Another alternative is to use nonpotable or gray water — water that is
not drinkable but is relatively clean. However, this usually carries costs
for extra plumbing, and always involves filtration and cleaning. Few data
centers use gray water.

Although it is not a solution, most operators can reduce water

consumption by raising their temperature set points — even if only a few
degrees — while staying within the ASHRAE-recommended range. This,
of course, needs to be undertaken and monitored with care.
A final point: in regions where the electricity is primarily or significantly
provided by hydroelectric power, the price and the carbon footprint
of that power may rise in times of drought, when water flow may be
reduced. This has already occurred in some US states.
Structural and secondary responses

Some of the effects of climate change will be secondary: the data center
industry will, like all industries, reshape itself to manage the effects of
extreme weather, volatility, changing water levels and, undoubtedly, an
added level of oversight and management from governments. Table
4 outlines some of these changes. Several may have been happening
anyway but will be accelerated by the climate change threat. A few may
offer opportunities; others may be risks only if not addressed.
Table 4. Climate change: Secondary and sectorwide impacts
Effect on data center build and

Possible effects on operators/IT services
operational trends
• Higher investments in resiliency

• Higher investments in automation/monitoring
• Possible higher staff costs to cover contingencies
Overall increased capital and
• Higher investments in supply chain redundancy, remote hands services, etc.
operating costs
• Higher prices from third parties that pass on their increased costs (cloud,
colocation services)
• Higher insurance premiums for many/most
• Increased reporting of carbon dioxide, particulate and water emissions

• Stricter planning rules regarding water, pollution, energy source/use/ re-use
Increased government oversight,
• Greater public, executive and official scrutiny of energy use/efficiency
legislation
• Greater internal/external reporting/oversight of resiliency risks
• Reclassification as Critical National Infrastructure for some operators
• Increased site resiliency requirements (concurrent maintainability/N+2 most

common)
Higher level of resiliency — site • Greater use of remote management/automation
level • Increased requirement to prove resiliency (to third parties, insurers, governing
bodies)
• Smaller and edge data centers required to reach higher resiliency standards
Source: Uptime Institute Intelligence 2020 Continues on next page

Table 4. Climate change: Secondary and sectorwide impacts (continued)
Effect on data center build and

Possible effects on operators/IT services
operational trends
• Greater use of intra-region active-active resiliency (availability zones)

Greater distributed resiliency — • Greater use of out-of-region disaster recovery, third sites and cloud-based
regional and out of region continuity services
• Greater use of colos/public cloud to provide extra capacity/recovery
• Enterprises will increase resiliency/spread risk through greater use of
colocation
Accelerated migration to • Increased site risk will force more closures of enterprise data centers — move
colocation/connectivity services to colocation and/or cloud
• Colocation operators with associated private networks/availability zones will
provide extra resiliency
• “Just in time” logistics in the supply chain will be reviewed; suppliers and
operators will add extra inventories
Supply chain favors “just in case”
• Local suppliers and services companies may be favored to reduce the
operations
impact of wider global disruption
• Where possible, more second sourcing used for key components, services
• Some operators will re-site/move data centers to safer areas

Data center re-siting/migrations • Operators may need to separate/distribute main data center loads to spread
risk
• Regular (annual) review of climate/weather risks

• Monitoring of weather risks institutionalized
Constant monitoring of weather- • Monitoring of ground water, utility state, supply chain, services and staff
related risks status
• Climate/weather risk added to some management and customer status
dashboards
• Certain regions and cities will become “no-go” areas for new data center
“No-go” zones emerge for larger
builds
data centers
• Data centers in these regions may be ruggedized for local conditions
The emergence of the ruggedized • Ruggedized prefab data center designs will become more common, adapted
data center for local weather conditions
• Data centers will be more capable of running with very few staff at some/all
times
More automation/remote operation • Operators and suppliers will use more remote monitoring and external data
services (such as grid, weather, etc.)
• Security will be a major concern and a barrier to adoption/adaptation
• Increased site risk/complexity will encourage the move to public cloud

• Public cloud site and distributed resiliency will encourage adoption
• Public cloud environmental leadership/open reporting will encourage
Accelerated migration to cloud
adoption
• Low transparency by many cloud providers will create resiliency/governance
concerns

Below we discuss some of the risks described in Table 4 in greater detail.
New builds and Climate change will likely have a profound effect on where and how data
centers are built. Operators, already paying close attention to cooling
site selection maps and flood zones, will be evermore cautious, considering everything
from water availability to the political environment relating to business
concerns and climate change. Some zones — even some cities — will be
considered high risk.
Latency issues allowing, data centers may move even farther outside of
flood plains and storm paths and nearer plentiful resources like water
or electricity. Clustering around other facilities with good infrastructure
and shared services will continue, in spite of the push toward second tier
and remote edge facilities. A change in risk assessment could lead to
increased land acquisition costs for some — and asset write-downs for
others in threatened areas.
Meanwhile, given there will always be a need for smaller edge data
centers, we might expect an increased use of ruggedized prefab designs,
which are more secure against extreme weather events.
Government Increased official involvement in the planning and operation of data

centers may be considered a secondary effect of climate change —
and planning and an effect that will require attention and investment. Many of the
measures proposed will most likely favor efficiency over resiliency.
oversight While governments and planners generally have a poor understanding

of data center technology, they can be very responsive to what voters
want. With some exceptions in countries and states, there is a strong
and strengthening mood across the world in favor of radical measures
to reduce carbon emissions. This, in turn, affects resiliency, because the
main areas affected are primary power, backup power and cooling. The
known inefficiencies of IT use (low utilization, for example) have so far
escaped attention.
Organizations in every region can expect increased scrutiny of data
center carbon emissions and, in many regions, water use (see Drought/
water shortage), accelerating a trend that is two decades old.
This has already led to some significant legislative and planning impacts
on data centers. In Amsterdam, for example, new data centers were not
given planning permission for a year, ending in 2020, unless they proved
they could reuse heat and had a PUE (power usage effectiveness) of 1.2
or lower. Existing data centers must reach a PUE of 1.3 or lower. (New
data centers are now allowed, but with strict limits on space and power
use.) Restrictions are also in place in Singapore, because of power and
water use. In California, there are restrictions on the use of DX cooling
and on the choice and use of generators; there is also a dispute over
the classification and use of fuel cells. In the UK, ever-evolving carbon
reporting and energy reduction requirements necessitate constant
attention from larger operators.
Some of these rules can put operators in a difficult position: The use of
DX cooling may save water but will push up power use; reductions in PUE
can satisfy planners but may require a reduction in power redundancy
and, therefore, in resiliency. The use of cloud as a backup can increase
resiliency against extreme weather but pushes up total carbon emissions
and costs.
More legislation, reporting requirements and restrictions can be
expected, sometimes with unintended consequences. Carbon taxes and
cap-and-trade schemes will push up the price of power; there will always
be efforts to limit the use of generators, or to mandate efficiency. Some
greater review of the use of carbon offsets and renewable energy credits
can be expected; these are widely used in the data center sector but are
not always effective in eliminating any carbon emissions. Outright bans
of certain technologies may be put forward.
The biggest data center operators have responded proactively to this,
with the corporate sustainability teams collaborating with data center
operational teams to help drive perceptions and policy. Sectorwide
initiatives may be needed to educate governments and lobbyists about
the role of data centers in maintaining social and business resiliency, and
in the technical trade-offs that may need to be made.
Operational The financial impact of climate change on data centers in particular, and
on critical infrastructure in general, may be significant — but modeling
resources and this is as complex as modeling the climate itself.
Investors are certainly concerned. Large companies with buildings,
costs land and businesses in vulnerable areas could suffer huge write-downs
and losses of revenue. According to research by Standard & Poor’s
(S&P’s) Trucost division, which researches climate change risks, S&P
500 companies own physical assets in 68 countries, with a market
capitalization of $18 trillion (US). Sixty percent of these companies,
it says, hold assets that face a high risk of being impacted by climate
change.
Site managers seeking to determine the impact of extreme weather
events/conditions may expect increased costs related to:
• Increasing resiliency – more redundancy, automation and
monitoring (all these are trends reflected in Uptime Institute survey
findings).
• Backup (cloud, colo) and disaster recovery (DR) services.
• Insurance premiums.
• Power and water prices.
• Colocation prices (operators will pass on their costs).
• Switching technologies — for example, adding mechanical cooling
in response to water shortages.

Move to cloud As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, an Uptime Institute survey
suggested up to a fifth of organizations were consider moving more
and colocation workloads to the public cloud as a result. Climate change may have a
similar effect, for three reasons:
• The ability to shift the growing risks and costs associated with
defending data centers against extreme weather/climate change to
the service provider.
• The ability of cloud providers to offer distributed resiliency, both
within region and between regions — along with an overall high
level of security/resiliency.
• The lower PUE and strong environmental commitment of large
colocation and cloud operators.
Factors such as these have long played a role in encouraging a move
to both public cloud providers and colocation companies. However,
there many other reasons to move workloads, with corporate agility,
cost control and asset reduction all likely to play a bigger role. However,
in situations where data centers become uneconomic or too risky to
operate — which will likely be a rare but very possible situation — most
enterprises will favor using colocation companies or cloud services,
rather than reinvest in new facilities.
Advice and strategy:

Ten actions to consider
The Key Findings section at the beginning of this document includes
some of the main observations arising from this report. But what should
operators actually do? The list below describes some steps that should
be considered by data center owners and operators. Most do some of
these already, and many will be considered a normal part of resiliency.
But Uptime Institute research suggests many do not conduct reviews
regularly, and that extremes of weather and climate change do present
risks, at least in severity and strategic impact, that lie outside the scope
of much contingency planning.
Know the Predicting the likelihood and scale of a weather-related event can be
difficult. However, international organizations, insurance companies
weather and governments have created tools to help calculate the likelihood
of natural disaster or temperature extremes. Operators should invest
in understanding weather patterns and using prediction resources. As
an example, information and data are available to help understand the
terminology and determine whether an event is a 100-year flood or a
1,000-year flood.3
A variety of tools are available. For example, CatNet is an interactive map
tool from the insurance company Swiss RE. It contains information on
a number of natural hazards, including tornadoes, earthquakes, winter

storm peak gust, hail, volcanoes and flood risk. Swiss RE regards CatNet
as a first attempt at a Worldwide Natural Hazard Atlas. The CatNet geo-
risk tool is accessible for external users who register.
Similarly, FM Global offers a natural hazards toolkit with maps and
The Green Grid offers temperature maps and isometric charts that
demonstrate the suitability of free cooling in certain geographies.
There are, of course, many real-time, detailed weather services, some of
which are designed specifically for utilities, energy providers, and other
large-scale providers of infrastructure. Some of these services can be
delivered via an application programming interface, so the data can be
integrated into a data center infrastructure management dashboard.
Conduct A resiliency analysis identifies a facility’s strengths and vulnerabilities

in the event of an extreme weather event. Identifying and clarifying
regular risk risks will point to where investments need to be made and will improve
responsiveness to events.
assessments Uptime Institute advises that organizations incorporate projections of
environmental conditions likely to be produced by climate change. In
this way, the results of the resiliency assessment will remain valid for a
period of time. Even so, we advise a risk analysis be conducted regularly
– perhaps once a year.
If risks are identified, managers should perform a cost-benefit analysis
on changes that may enable them to ride through various scenarios.
Increasing resiliency increases costs, and in some cases, this can mean
a data center becomes economically nonviable.
Harden the After a risk assessment is completed (and likely before), operators
will know where the biggest risks to ongoing operations lie. There are
data center many steps that can be taken — climate change will require some
organizations to rethink and renew overall resiliency strategies.
against extreme Some steps will involve planning, monitoring, and other preparations.
Other steps might include moving generators, switchgear or pumps.
weather Raising set point temperatures, or reducing energy and water
consumption, may free up capacity that can be used to improve
resiliency. Other small investments, such as improved lightning
protection or installed flood barriers, could be critical.
In some cases, a technology change or major investment may be
required. For example, in regions of high wildfire risk, direct fresh air
cooling might require extra filtration or a switch to indirect cooling. In a
very dry region, evaporative cooling may no longer be feasible.
Climate change can present extreme scenarios on a regular basis. It is
necessary to consider this when making investments. Resiliency always
comes at a price.

Monitor risks, For reasons of resiliency and for improved sustainability reporting, there
is a growing case for implementing a full dashboard to cover weather/
create a climate-related events and risks. This may include, for example, power
consumption; energy efficiency (PUE); carbon emissions, spanning
dashboard Scope 1 (direct emissions from owned or controlled sources) and
Scope 2 (indirect emissions from purchased electricity, etc.); water
consumption; and status of regional weather (heat/flood risk, etc.) and
of utility stability (likelihood of a power interruption, stability of supply).
Data is usually from environment agencies, utilities and other sources. It
may be possible to calculate an overall climate risk score.
This data can help organizations anticipate the impact of climate events
and reduce risk. The data can also be used to reassure clients and to
respond to inquiries from regulators.
Act early Extreme weather is usually signaled in advance. This gives operators the
opportunity to prepare, especially if good contingency plans are in place.
when weather Some advance measures include:
• Locating personnel at the data center or in hotels near the data
threatens center. Ensure that one shift does not leave the site until they are
relieved by the next shift.
• Discussing any possible power issues with the utility. If extreme
storms are predicted, consider moving to generators in advance
— a strategy that worked for some operators during Superstorm
Sandy.
• Moving some IT workloads/traffic to other data centers, or to cloud
services, thus reducing risk to the services.
Spread risk Extreme weather events can be regionwide. It makes sense, then, to
spread risks by spreading workloads across more than one data center.
Uptime Institute studies suggest that more organizations are adopting
active/active architectures for at least some workloads, with work
spread across several data centers, in and out of region.
Organizations can mitigate the impact of extreme weather by
considering this form of distributed resiliency. However, this is a complex
undertaking and may not be an option for many applications or data
center operators, for both technical and financial reasons.
There are, of course, other ways to spread the risk — by, for example,
using second or tertiary sites for backup and recovery, and for building
out-of-region presence.

Pay attention Securing a data center against an extreme weather event is primarily a
facility manager’s concern. But securing critical infrastructure is a wider
to IT, not just effort, taking in the IT management as well. If a weather event threatens
to overwhelm a data center, or disable it, the IT teams can take many
Facilities actions to reduce the impact.
An obvious step is to ensure that backup and DR services are fully
operational, and if necessary, move workloads. This should be practiced
as far in advance as possible. Few operators have ever drilled for
a complete data center failure, and extreme events may put many
resiliency strategies involving active/active workloads to the test at scale
for the first time. Evidence from the Uptime Institute’s outage tracking
data suggests failures often occur.
IT can also a play useful in gracefully shutting down nonessential
applications, giving more capacity and battery ride-through time to the
essential services.
Consider water Water is almost as important as power at some data centers — notably
those with chiller cooling and adiabatic/evaporative economizers. Partly
as important as because of the drive toward greater efficiency, this is now a significant
proportion of larger, newer data centers.
power Water shortages are unlikely to be as dramatic or instant as a power
loss. Even so, shortages will worsen in many areas and mitigation
strategies will be needed, such as greater on-site water storage or
investments in expensive standby cooling. Water monitoring and
reporting is advised.
Link Corporate sustainability goals, usually managed by Environmental, Social

and Governance staff, do not have a direct bearing on resiliency — but
sustainability they do have some. To meet required sustainability goals, governments
and company executives may place restrictions and costs on operations
and resiliency that may, in turn, affect technology choices and resiliency (power use,
carbon emissions and water use, for example). When considering
resiliency in the context of weather and climate change, managers
should work with sustainability teams to ensure realistic and safe
choices are made. It may also be necessary to lobby planners and
officials to ensure they do not make rulings that affect resiliency.
Invest in remote Uptime Institute research suggests that many data center owners/
managers intend to invest more in monitoring and automation because
monitoring and of the pandemic. This is because staff may need to monitor the data
center from a distance or may be working off-site. Given that staff may
management not be able to attend sites easily during extreme weather or may need
to monitor multiple points/sites across a region, the threat of extreme
weather events may provide another justification for these investments.

Summary
Table 5 provides a summary of some potential actions data center and
IT managers can take in response to climate change/extreme weather
events.
TABLE 5. CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION STRATEGIES
Climate change Local Potential

condition condition mitigation
Increased rain/ Long-term, • Check local flood maps.

rising sea levels recurrent, and • Confer with local authorities about infrastructure availability, including connectivity,
higher flooding utility power and roads.
• Stock sandbags.
• Confer with local authorities about evacuation plans.
• Evaluate site: Elevate the entire data center, if possible. Elevate data halls;
generators, diesel tanks and pumps; and electric conduit and cable where
possible, especially in existing data centers.
• Harden exteriors, including any penetrations such as windows and doors.
• Re-evaluate independence of utility power paths, connectivity, and emergency
power systems, including the utility substation.
• Investigate load shifting.
Drought Water shortage • Investigate ability to increase cooling capacity. Consider direct expansion
solutions.
• Investigate ability to operate at warmer temperatures.
• Investigate load shifting.
• Budget for higher cooling costs.
Extreme storm High winds, • Evaluate building shell.

increased and • Enclose exterior structures, if possible.
more frequent • Eliminate on-site exterior storage.
storms, increased • Re-evaluate independence of utility power paths, connectivity, and emergency
lightning strikes power systems.
• Check lightning protection.
Extreme Warmer local • Investigate ability to increase cooling capacity.

temperatures ambient • Investigate ability to operate at warmer temperatures.
air, greater • Increase building insulation to reduce solar load.
temperature • Check whether cooling and power systems that use outdoor air for cooling
variation, colder their own internal components, including engine generators, are rated to
local ambient air operate at the same capacity at the new extreme temperatures.
• Protect pipes, cooling towers and equipment, generator fuel supplies and start
batteries, etc. from freezing temperatures and ice buildup.
Fire Smoke and • Investigate indirect cooling.

pollutants in air • Investigate additional filtration.
• Evaluate building shell.
Other Business • Review vendor service level agreements, especially for fuel.
interruption • Investigate load shifting.
• Prepare for civil unrest.
• Review insurance policies.
• Review staffing requirements and availability.

ENDNOTES
1 Sources cited by The Wall Street Journal (2015) https://www.wsj.com/articles/

data-centers-1435168386
2 https://journal.uptimeinstitute.com/dont-ignore-water-consumption/
3 https://www.usgs.gov/science-explorer-results?es=100+year+flood

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andy Lawrence is Uptime Institute’s Executive Director of Research.

Mr. Lawrence has built his career focusing on innovative new solutions,
emerging technologies, and opportunities found at the intersection of IT
and infrastructure. Contact: alawrence@uptimeinstitute.com
ABOUT UPTIME INSTITUTE INTELLIGENCE

Uptime Institute Intelligence is an independent unit of Uptime Institute dedicated to identifying,
analyzing and explaining the trends, technologies, operational practices and changing business
models of the mission-critical infrastructure industry. For more about Uptime Institute Intelligence,
visit uptimeinstitute.com/ui-intelligence.
ABOUT UPTIME INSTITUTE

Uptime Institute is an advisory organization focused on improving the performance, efficiency and reliability of business critical
infrastructure through innovation, collaboration and independent certifications. Uptime Institute serves all stakeholders responsible for
IT service availability through industry leading standards, education, peer-to-peer networking, consulting and award programs delivered to
enterprise organizations and third-party operators, manufacturers and providers. Uptime Institute is recognized globally for the creation and
administration of the Tier Standards and Certifications for Data Center Design, Construction and Operations, along with its Management &
Operations (M&O) Stamp of Approval, FORCSS® methodology and Efficient IT Stamp of Approval.
Uptime Institute – The Global Data Center Authority®, a division of The 451 Group, has office locations in the US, Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil,
UK, Spain, UAE, Russia, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia. Visit uptimeinstitute.com for more information.
All general queries:

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The Gathering Storm Climate Change and Data Center Resiliency

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RISK &

The gathering storm:

Extreme weather events have become significantly more

This Uptime Institute Intelligence report includes:

Direct site risks 8

Structural and secondary responses 15

Advice and strategy: Ten actions to consider 19

About this report (methodology)

© COPYRIGHT 2020 UPTIME I NS TITUTE . A L L R I GHTS R E S E RV E D 3

In this report, we make only one assumption: Extreme weather

© COPYRIGHT 2020 UPTIME I NS TITUTE . A L L R I GHTS R E S E RV E D 4

In this report, we discuss three areas we believe require management

• Site-level risks - Risks to the local site from an extreme weather

• Sector disruption and change - Some of the effects of climate

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Technology choices can also significantly increase or decrease

Certain types of operator, and operators in certain industries are more

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TABLE 1. COLOS REPORT HIGHER LEVELS OF CLIMATE CHANGE PREPARATION

Colocation Telecom Financial Software/Cloud Industry

and pandemic that have some commonalities:

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Direct site risks

Table 2. Extreme weather/climate change: Site risks to critical infrastructure

Risk Site impacts (primary)

• Damage to equipment, cabling

• Damage to equipment, cabling

• Ground water contamination

• Damage from flying objects, trees, etc.

• Restricted water for cooling (chilled, evaporative)

• Insufficient economization cooling capacity

• Evaporative cooling becomes impractical

• Direct risk of fire to data centers — especially edge

© COPYRIGHT 2020 UPTIME I NS TITUTE . A L L R I GHTS R E S E RV E D 8

Although the risk of many weather-related incidents may seem low,

© COPYRIGHT 2020 UPTIME I NS TITUTE . A L L R I GHTS R E S E RV E D 9

substations and electrical switchgear (30 percent of switchgear failures

© COPYRIGHT 2020 UPTIME I NS TITUTE . A L L R I GHTS R E S E RV E D 10

Engine generators — which may well be pressed into service — pose

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Table 3. Extreme weather/climate change: Regional risks to critical infrastructure

• Damage to roads, supply facilities

• Damage to roads, supply facilities

• Ground water contamination

• Damage to utility/telco towers, masts, aerial cabling

• Restricted water for cooling

• Health/safety issues for staff

• Danger to life, loss of infrastructure

Source: Uptime Institute Intelligence 2020

Below we discuss some of these risks in greater detail.

Connectivity A recent study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

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are in small data centers in vulnerable locations. For these reasons,

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Although it is not a solution, most operators can reduce water

Structural and secondary responses

Table 4. Climate change: Secondary and sectorwide impacts

Effect on data center build and

• Higher investments in resiliency

• Increased reporting of carbon dioxide, particulate and water emissions

• Increased site resiliency requirements (concurrent maintainability/N+2 most

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