Black & Veatch: Build Business Resilience with Climate-Adaptive Infrastructure - Seite 2

Consider the Nautilus Data Center in Port of Stockton, California. The facility uses recirculated water from a nearby source to cool the data center, and the water body becomes a heat sink. Innovative designs mean that Nautilus consumes no water, produces no wastewater and requires no refrigerants, water treatment chemicals, cooling towers or computer room air handlers. The technology uses less than one-third of the power that traditional computer room air-conditioning would use for cooling. Through Nautilus' innovation and Black & Veatch engineering, California is host to the world's first zero-water consumption data center.

3. Draw on Ecological Resilience
Sustainability actions often occur within the operational confines of a business, community or service district. But the best plans for sustainable systems work across geography and ecology to emphasize an area's natural resilience features and work in sync with Mother Nature.

Babcock Ranch, Florida, serves as a great example. Hurricane Ian, the Category 4 storm that slammed into Florida in October, knocked out electricity to 2.6 million Floridians. However, shops, offices, grocery stores, restaurants and homes in Babcock Ranch sustained no power or internet loss despite being about 20 miles from the storm's landfall.

At the heart of Babcock Ranch's resilience are sustainable design engineering and construction practices. For example, previously drained cattle ranchland was allowed to revert to natural wetlands, which function like retention ponds to uptake excess rain and floodwater. Native plants comprise 75 percent of the community's landscaping, which withstand high winds and soggy conditions to lessen storm impacts.

The Babcock Ranch Solar Energy Center and Babcock Preserve Solar Energy Center are at the community's energy core. Built on 870 acres, each center can generate 75 megawatts (MW) of clean energy capacity via 680,000 solar panels, augmented by a 1-MW battery energy storage system. Despite hurricane wind gusts of 150 miles per hour, Babcock Ranch's solar panels remained intact and functional, providing resilient, decarbonized energy.

Perhaps as Mother Nature intended, communities are embracing ecological processes and designing hardscapes that align with the environment - and for good reason. Streets that direct water away from homes and businesses, hardy native vegetation and underground electric distribution wires and communication infrastructure protect critical services and functions, building resilience.