A Green Approach to US Signal’s Expansion
By Cathy Applefeld Olson
Rapid expansion can sometimes come at a cost to critical details. Not so at US Signal, which is prioritizing sustainability and green energy as it makes moves to broaden its footprint nearly 4x this summer.
Headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the digital infrastructure company that provides cloud solutions, network connectivity and data center services tops our 2024 list for Energy & Sustainability not only for its resolution to power all its Michigan data centers with 100 percent sustain able energy by 2027, but its commitment to energy-saving evolutions as it retrofits legacy facilities and constructs new data centers across the nine states it serves.
It’s a mandate CEO Dan Watts says is a literal hot topic both of conversation and action, “especially as the power needs in the industry are rapidly increasing. As we contemplate new data centers and expansion projects, sustainability and green energy and things of those nature are on the forefront of our lists of things we need to pay attention to.”
In Michigan, US Signal is partnering with Detroit-based energy company DTE to provide a fully sustainable transmission of power within the next two years, as it is in parallel assessing options in bio power and natural gas across its footprint.
“We’re making significant investments every year to put money into these programs and these projects. It does cost money to make a more efficient data center,” says COO John White. “And we’re focusing not just on making sure we have sustainable power but that we are as efficient as possible with the hardware we are buying as well as how we are operating our facilities.”
The scale is grand, says White—who notes each facility typically use 2 megawatts of power—but every measure makes a difference. “For every watt of power, you have to cool that with another watt. Instead of having it as a 1:1, we want it to be a half or .4,” he says. “We have customers coming and going and changing their work all the time, so we need access to dynamic data so that we can understand how we can tune and tweak the elements that are available to us.”
Among recent tech innovations is the use of thermal imaging that shows areas that are hot, cold and/or where air is not flowing properly to ensure swift resolution of any hot zones. Air conditioners inside the centers can be immediately retuned, and some facilities are also optimizing “free cooling,” which in effect uses outside air to help cool the fluid inside.
Other advances include assessing vent functionality to determine whether opening or closing them even just a few milli meters would be more optimal, replacing less efficient bulbs with LED lighting, and employing light sensors that will power off lights when no humans are in a given area. “Computers don’t need to see each other,” White says.
The company is also gleaning new learnings as it expands the US Signal family. The newly acquired center in Bend, Oregon, for example, has solar farms on-site, “and we’re looking into to how we can take advantage of that [technology] in other data centers,” he says. “These facilities have big flat roofs so putting solar panels on them is an option.”
Looking ahead, Watts emphasizes the importance of staying agile and open to opportunities that present themselves across the industry and specifically at US Signal.
The proliferation of AI, electric vehicles and other “super-consumption requirements are going to continue to rachet up the power needs of the nation and right now we don’t have the energy infrastructure built to provide all that,” Watts says.
“It’s going to require some ingenuity and optionality and new technology we may not have deployed yet today. As we grow and as technology evolves, there will be options in the future we don’t have today we’ll want to take advantage of.”