The Green Grid has launched a new free online tool and maps designed to help European data center and facilities managers easily the amount of time that free cooling is available for their data centers. The group offered similar tools to U.S. data center operators last year. The updates extend coverage of the tool and maps to 33 European countries.

“Data centers with increasing IT loads require more power to cool them, so finding cooling options that use less power is critical not only for organizations that don’t have resources to build new facilities but also for those that want to save money,” said Vic Smith, Dell representative and EMEA technical work group chair of The Green Grid. “For much of the year, the air outside data centers can be cooler than the air inside. This tool that The Green Grid has developed will help determine how much free cooling a specific data center can leverage.”

Members of The Green Grid will have access to a high resolution graphical map of the estimated hours of air-side and water-side economization possible for Europe and many specific countries. Lower resolution maps of European free cooling estimates are available to non-members.

The tool is available for the following European countries: Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and United Kingdom.

It's worth noting that Exeter is one of the Cities that can be used in the calculations.