Helping noisy data centers fit into residential neighborhoods

The past few years have seen an explosion in data centers built across the country, as developers try to keep up with demand created by artificial intelligence, cloud storage, and e-commerce. Many of these data centers are being built near residential areas, and the people who live there keep complaining about the noise.

Gregory Miller and his colleagues at Trinity Consultants presented their work on noise control strategies for data centers as part of the joint 188th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and 25th International Congress on Acoustics, held May 18–23.

A key protection communities have from excessive noise is a well-crafted noise code. Local governments can pass laws or regulations limiting the amount of noise facilities like data centers can produce, along with more detailed rules regarding the types of noise, how often those noises occur, and how far away that noise can be perceived. Unfortunately, many jurisdictions lack detailed noise ordinances for data centers.

“Over the course of our work on noise control for data centers, one of the greatest challenges we kept facing was the lack of reliable noise codes that our clients could use, with conflicting noise requirements between local, county, and state authorities,” said Miller.

The absence of explicit noise ordinances means residents cannot be protected from extreme noise and developers have no clear guidance when designing new data centers. This problem is exacerbated by the addition of dedicated power plants and transformer stations.

“Having exhausted many of the sites that readily have enough power to run a data center, many new data centers are accompanied by power generation stations,” said Miller. “In many cases, the power generation is at least as noisy—if not noisier—than the data center it serves.”

To help develop proper guidance, Miller and his colleagues identified many of the worst sources of data center noise, along with the most effective means of controlling that noise. Some of the potential solutions include sound barriers, thick walls around power plants, and low-frequency resonators on some of the biggest sources of noise.

During the conference, Miller will also discuss his team’s efforts to help both data center developers and residential communities find solutions that work.

“We are continuing to work with data center developers on strategies for interacting with communities and demonstrating their interest in being reliable neighbors,” said Miller. “We are also working with communities to try to help them understand the types of information they need to develop robust noise ordinances.”

By encouraging a spirit of collaboration between both groups, Miller hopes that everyone can benefit from a quieter breed of data center.

“Ultimately, we want to help foster an environment in which residents are protected from excessive noise, and in which developers can reliably build new data centers within parameters that are reliable and reasonable,” said Miller.