Groundwater cooling uses relatively cool water drawn from wells to carry heat away from a data center. A 2011 video report featured PlusServer CTO Jochen Berger explaining the system at DataDock in Strasbourg, France: the facility drew groundwater from two 60-meter wells and used heat exchangers to transfer heat from its cooling system. PlusServer now lists SXB DataDock as inactive, so the video is best read as a historical case study—not confirmation of a system operating today.
What the DataDock video describes
DataCenterKnowledge’s June 27, 2011 report describes a roughly 16-minute video featuring Jochen Berger, then PlusServer’s CTO, presenting groundwater cooling at the company’s DataDock facility in Strasbourg. The report gives the groundwater temperature as 12–14 °C (54–57 °F) and says the water came from two wells, each 60 meters deep. DataCenterKnowledge’s 2011 report
These figures describe the project as reported at the time. The water temperature is a site condition, not a measure of energy savings, cooling efficiency, or total water use.
How groundwater cooling moves heat
In the reported DataDock setup, groundwater served as a cool heat sink. Water drawn from wells passed through filtration intended to limit buildup in pipes, while heat exchangers transferred heat from the data center’s internal cooling circuit to the groundwater-side system. Cooling-process description
A separate technical article describes a common arrangement in which groundwater is pumped from suction wells, passes through a heat exchanger, and is returned through injection wells after warming. The building’s cooling water circulates on the other side of the exchanger, keeping the building circuit separate from the groundwater. This is general system context; it is not a verified diagram of DataDock’s exact installation. Technical overview of an alternative groundwater-cooling concept
What the report does—and does not—establish
- Reported: DataDock was in Strasbourg, the video featured PlusServer CTO Jochen Berger, and the 2011 description gives two 60-meter wells and groundwater at 12–14 °C (54–57 °F). DataCenterKnowledge report
- Reported separately: filtration and heat exchangers are described as parts of the cooling process. Cooling-process description
- Not established: the sources do not provide a measured energy-saving figure, total water-use figure, or comparative efficiency result for DataDock. A cool source-water temperature by itself cannot prove those outcomes.
- Current status: PlusServer’s status page labels “SXB DataDock (inactive).” It does not state when or why the facility became inactive, and the listing alone does not establish the present condition of its original cooling system. PlusServer status page
What determines whether groundwater cooling is feasible
The Strasbourg example shows the basic heat-transfer idea, but it does not establish that groundwater cooling will suit another data center. Feasibility depends on local groundwater availability and requirements, well extraction and return design, water quality and filtration, the heat-exchanger and cooling-circuit arrangement, and the pumping and air-circulation loads involved. Regional requirements vary, so the general system description is not a permit guide for Strasbourg or any other location. Technical overview
To judge performance against another cooling approach, a facility would need comparable measurements of energy use, water use, and reliability under stated operating conditions. The DataDock reporting cited here supplies no such comparison.
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