Paris Data Center Not Too Noisy, After All (datacenterdynamics.com)

judgecorp writes: A Paris court has ruled that a suburban data center can continue to operate, reversing an earlier decision to close it down after protests from residents. The data center's owner, Interxion, cited noise impact studies form 2014 which showed the site was operating within authorized limits, and also within the levels it predicted in its planning application

Comments

That was quick

[thegarbz]

Don't court cases normally take months if not years to appeal?

Re:That was quick

[VVelox]

Follow the money. EuroDollarPounds will always expedite a process when there's more money on one side than the other.

The sad fact of this matter is this new DC makes more noise than what was present, a clear backward step. Regardless of the industry, the planners should be aiming for a higher standard from everyone. There's no reason why a DC needs to make any noise outside the building itself.

Silent HVAC? So basically a miracle then?

HVAC is a standard minor background noise for any modern urban setting. It is no noisier for a DC than it is any generic office building.

Re:That was quick

[wilhil6128]

Not really... My brother lived for a year in a tower block next to the Level 3 data centre in London... The noise was so bad during the summer - a full huge roof with so many AC units. I can't tell you how loud it was, but, you don't want to live near them by choice... If you move to the area after, fair enough... but, if they are built later, it is certainly bad. My brother moved in during the winter and didn't notice at all - it was only during the summer it became a problem.

Re:That was quick

[_merlin]

It's the sound of backup generator testing that the residents have complained about.

Re:That was quick

[angel'o'sphere]

Erm, what is HVAC supposed to mean? No idea if it could be silent ;D

Re:That was quick

[amalcolm]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Heating, ventilation, air conditioning

Re:That was quick

[Anonymous Coward]

Silent HVAC? So basically a miracle then?

HVAC is a standard minor background noise for any modern urban setting. It is no noisier for a DC than it is any generic office building.

The amount of noise produced HVAC system is to tied to the amount of heat it needs to remove. Since a DC produces probably 10 times the heat as a average office building. It without a doubt produces much more noise, unless special care is taken to suppress the extra noise.

Re:That was quick

[jbengt]

Since a DC produces probably 10 times the heat as a average office building. It without a doubt produces much more noise, unless special care is taken to suppress the extra noise.

10 times the heat probably translates to only a few decibels of extra sound power, and less difference than that in sound pressure at the lot line, if they do it right.
Anyway, the complaints were about the noisy backup generators, not the HVAC.

STRIKE!

[Hognoxious]

I'm sure they'll go on strike over this.

Oh, hang on - it's in Montreuil - nobody has a job there anyway.

Re:STRIKE!

[hughbar]

More to the point, Montreuil is full of poor people, some of them communists (it used to have a communist mairie, as I recall?), so they can **** off.

I would guess the people in work are probably on shifts as well, so they won't want the rattle of AC and possibly standby generators. However 'industry' usually wins these things now, as in the UK and aircraft noise. If it's 'growth' we now no longer care about quality of life. Sad that this attitude has come to France, but it's on the edge of Paris, not really 'la France profonde'.

Re:STRIKE!

[Milvuss]

Montreuil has a lot a gentrification currently going on. So, even if there still quite a lot of poor people, and a huge Malian community, there is also more and more wealthy people there. And quite a lot of jobs too, with all the offices of BNP Paribas.

But, in fact, it's not really relevant here, Montreuil is where the court is, not the datacenter. The later is in La Courneuve. I know less well this city, but there it seems there is also quite a lot of gentrification and (new) jobs there.

Re:STRIKE!

[hughbar]

Yes, thanks, La Corneuve is a long way from the Mairie de Montreuil. This is my old department, le neuf-trois, an epicentre of fun and disorder. Not surprised that the populace are being subjected to something that wouldn't be acceptable in 75016 or 75008 for example.

Re:STRIKE!

[jbengt]

The place is located on a border of a major industrial area and surrounded by highways.
I wonder what was the measured noise level if it caused a protest - there obviously was quite a lot of noise even without that DC.

A lot of times, it's the tonality of the noise that is irritating. The issue is not necessarily the full spectrum total noise level that most noise ordinances regulate, even if it is weighted like dBA.

Re:STRIKE!

[fafaforza]

Not always. Auto race tracks that have been operating for decades are told to enforce sound limits or shut down completely because some new development opened 5 years ago nearby.

But on the flip side, no one wants airplane noise, but everyone wants to benefit from being within 30 minutes of an international airport and getting their package from the other end of the country in 2 days. That doesn't happen by truck or train. So, lots of hypicrisy and NIMBY thinking, and an industry standing up to some of these complaints is akin to a parent telling a child that something is good for them, even if it doesn't seem to be.

Re:STRIKE!

[david_thornley]

Realistically, lots of people benefit from the airport, but considerably fewer have major noise problems. NIMBY is a reasonable response sometimes. Many people moved into the flight area before the local airport got lots more busy and opened another runway, and really didn't expect the noise they got.

Noise source

[DrYak]

Regardless of the industry, the planners should be aiming for a higher standard from everyone.

In theory, they should. In practice: they aim for whatever minimal effort that still manage to passes at what they law requires.

There's no reason why a DC needs to make any noise outside the building itself.

Air conditionning.
A data center generates heat. Which needs to be extracted, which means that there's some heat exchange process that is external to the building.
And the datacenter constructor probably went for the cheapest possible that still pass the law instead of the best.

Also, a data center generates quite some noise indoor (fans and spinning disks of all the machines) and it wouldn't be surprising if the constructor only went for the cheapest minimal building noise insulation that still passes the law's requirement.

Re:Noise source

[Aereus]

Wouldn't the cheap solution to this be to build "highway sound barriers" around those units to X height to dampen the noise levels until they're at such a height that they don't impact the surrounding area as much?

Re:Noise source

[Mashiki]

Better solution would be the reflect the sound up and away, which is how highway sound barriers work. They either reflect the sound back within the corridor, or they're installed on a slight angle that reflects the sound away. The same solution would probably help in this case. The other option of course would be to use geothermal taps to cool, of course people would likely also throw a NIMBY hissy fit. An example of that would be a waste to energy plant in a nearby city, it produced electricity, and water used to cool parts of the plant from the high heat during incineration were then pumped to a nearby large hospital complex(4 hospitals all within a stones throw, including a sick kids, and two standard hospitals and a long-term care hospital). NIMBYs threw a hissy fit because it was burning garbage in their backyard. However, ever since it was shut down the now ship garbage to a giant open air garbage dump that you can smell 3-5km away.

Re:Noise source

[lisaparratt]

They should have used the excess heat to provide district heating to their neighbours - a lot become tolerable when you're cashing in.

Re:Noise source

[angel'o'sphere]

You mean the data center? I doubt it produces so much excess heat that it is worth it.
Anyway: consider the uproar that after or while building the dc all sourrounding streets are opened to lay pipes, the uproar when all potential customers houses and cellars get reworked for those pipes consider the uproar when rents are rising: see you have the new heating system ... with all that compfort you surely like to pay more?
On top of that: it would take ages to integrate that into an already existing city. (On top of that again: we are talking about Paris ...)

Re:Noise source

[CanadianMacFan]

The government data center that I worked in was linked up to a bunch of others which dumped the heat into local river. Worked well except there was a couple of days we had to shut down because a boat dropped its anchor on the discharge pipe into the river damaging it.

I always thought we should have at least used the heat from the data center to create hot water for the building before sending it away to the cooling plant. It would have cost almost nothing for the building to run. Just a little bit of electricity to transfer the heat from our pipes to their tank and they could have saved quite a bit on natural gas.

Re:Noise source

[jbengt]

You mean the data center? I doubt it produces so much excess heat that it is worth it.

It's not so much the amount of heat, it's that the temperature differential is too small to be very useful for much.

Re:Noise source

[jbengt]

"Highway sound barriers" are not cheap, and good planning, probably using more sophisticated sound barriers, would be needed to be very effective.

Misleading headline

[Anonymous Coward]

If the residents are protesting and the plant is within regulation, the regulations allow too much noise. If the datacenter was "not too noisy after all" then nobody would have complained/protested.

Re:Misleading headline

[jklovanc]

If the datacenter was "not too noisy after all" then nobody would have complained/protested.

For some people any perceptible change in noise it too much noise. That is a subjective standard. The area is probably zoned for a certain noise level and seems to be within that objective standard.

Re:Misleading headline

[khchung]

If the datacenter was "not too noisy after all" then nobody would have complained/protested.

For some people any perceptible change in noise it too much noise.

Worse, for some people with hidden agenda, even imperceptible noise is too much noise.

It wouldn't be hard for budding politician to make an issue out of nothing and come out "for the neighborhood" as a knight in shining armor driving away a "noisy datacenter", and then appearing for the next election nearby. These things happen all the time where ever there are local elections.

Re:Misleading headline

[X-chan]

This is France, we're famous for protesting and going on strike for about everything under the sun.

That said, while I can't judge this specific case, the noise overall in Paris is bad. Of course you eventually get used to it and you phase it out, but I don't know how I'd live without double glazing. Nothing to do with datacenters, just cars and other motorized vehicules. So anything that add extra noise on top of it is not going to be welcomed by residents.

Re:Misleading headline

[Anonymous Coward]

If the residents are protesting and the plant is within regulation, the regulations allow too much noise.

We've had people complaining from headaches caused by a cell tower.. which was never switched on.
So I would not take people protests as a consistent sign that regulations must be changed. These protests sometimes just mean that something HAS changed.

Re: Misleading headline

[Stewie241]

I would be more concerned about the extra radiation from the DC rather than the sound.

Whenever I see networking WiFi equipment I get headaches. I couldn't imagine having to see a DC all the time. I'd be able to feel myself getting cancer.

Re: Misleading headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you also get headaches when you don't see the WiFi equipment?

Re: Misleading headline

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

I can guarantee you that I can detect if WiFi is present or not. Using my iPhone, I go into Settings, Network...

Fight for your bitcoins!

Re:Misleading headline

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

I also couldn't live without double glazing. Of course for me it's all about donuts, so...

Fight for your bitcoins!

Re: Misleading headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, when your in Best Buy, the hundred of WiFi units setting on the shelf must render you catatonic.

Re:Misleading headline

[marciot]

We've had people complaining from headaches caused by a cell tower.. which was never switched on.
So I would not take people protests as a consistent sign that regulations must be changed. These protests sometimes just mean that something HAS changed.

According to Wikipedia, even the Eiffel Tower was highly objected to when it was first proposed. Here is the petition, which is quite fun to read, in retrospect:

"We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection ... of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower ... To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the Dome of les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream. And for twenty years ... we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal."

Re:Misleading headline

[david_thornley]

Was it Dumas that said he liked to do his writing in a restaurant in the Eiffel Tower, because it was the only place in town where he couldn't see the thing?

Re:Misleading headline

[marciot]

Was it Dumas that said he liked to do his writing in a restaurant in the Eiffel Tower, because it was the only place in town where he couldn't see the thing?

Guy de Maupassant, according to the same wikipedia article.

Re:Misleading headline

[LWATCDR]

Or they are just a bunch of people that like to complain.

Re: Misleading headline

[LWATCDR]

Whoosh!
Warning! You have no sense of whimsy.

Re:Misleading headline

[jklovanc]

So what kind of zoning should be between the residential and commercial zoning? You will find that commercial zones abut residential zones pretty much everywhere.

Re:Misleading headline

[david_thornley]

Thanks - I couldn't remember the author.

Note : 2014

[aepervius]

Roughly after the start of it. That means at that time it could indeed have a low noise during the study. The question is not whether it did respect the law back then, but what is the noise assessment today, and whether the fuel tank are properly secured. But i am not surprise the appeal court overturned the decision. Stopping the center and withdrawing allowance was stupid. In such a case you do a study first and recommend measure to stop or lower the noise. You don#t stop the shit out of the company.

arf

[sociocapitalist]

La Courneuve is a relatively poor area near (not in) Paris. If this were in, say, Neuilly-sur-Seine, which is also near (not in) Paris but happens to house, among others, former president Nicolas Sarkozy, it would never have been built to start with.

La Courneuve Wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Neuilly Wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:arf

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

Ils devraient renommer ça "La Courvieille". Then again pretty much everything in France is old, so my point is moot.

Fight for your bitcoins!

I sympathize with the residents

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue with noise is that is very subjective and i can see why the locals are upset.
Their street was probably very quiet and now it probably a constant humm, day and night.
it doesn't have to by loud, 50-60 db, witch is probably within legal limits, but never the less can be annoying.
I can give you an example: I've recently moved from one end of an apartment building to the other, 100m or so away.
The building is parallel to a noisy street but one end is closer to a stop so cars begin to stop there and the noise is a little lower, the difference becomes more a noticeable at night and means now I don't sleep as good a before.
Another example: perpendicular to the building is the HVAC system from a Mall located 25 meters away, again it is within limits, and during the day the apartments facing it have now problem because the street noise is greater, but at night it's annoying and instead of a peaceful night they have to listen to the buzz if they don't what to close the windows.
Seen from outside, just by looking at numbers, the people's demands might seem absurd, but for the ones affected could by like the Chinese dropping, because is non stop.

Re:I sympathize with the residents

[silas_moeckel]

Planning and zoning get some. Idiots keep on trying to build walkable cities but do not understand that means everybody is living right next to commercial space.

I live in a nice suburban town nearly all the industry is on the other side of a hill we can not hear anything short of an explosion . It's realy not that hard residential next to light commercial and industrial/heavy commercial past that with the highway past them. High open space vs building zoning means we have buffers not lots that amount to parking and building with little else. So we end up with neighborhoods surrounded by school, churches, deli's barber shops etc on the main road larger business on the other side and industry behind them.

Recycling waste heat: meanwhile in CH

[DrYak]

Meanwhile, Geneva (Switzerland) successfully managed to build a floating swimming pool in the lake that is heated by the waste heat of cooling loops of the nearby hotels.

Re:Recycling waste heat: meanwhile in CH

[Coren22]

How do they heat it in the copious winters when the hotels presumably don't generate waste heat?

Simple.

[jenningsthecat]

If the datacentre came along AFTER the residences were built and populated, and if the majority of local residents say it's too noisy, then it IS too noisy. Never mind 'authorized limits', planning applications, and the like.

Re:Simple.

[LWATCDR]

Thank goodness things don't work that way. If the majority of people didn't want a cafe with a large gay clientele should they boot that out?
So you want everyone to be subject to the voting of the local community?
You are the flipside of the extreme libertarian view of "you can do anything you want on your property".
Both plans are terrible.

Openning days

[DrYak]

How do they heat it in the copious winters when the hotels presumably don't generate waste heat?

In the case of this project, it's mainly open from june until october
(when there's guarantee that there will be enough waste heat to warm it good)
outside this time frame, the cooling loop and the bassins are still around (apparently the hotel still needs some form of cooling) but the entrance door is locked.

(But for the record there are other lake baths that are open all year long, because there are batshit crazy people who are ready to jump into (non-heated) lake water all year long, including in cold winter (I'm among them).)