Editor's Note: In March 2017 MTS became BellMTS following the acquisition of Manitoba Telecom Services by Bell Canada.

Manitoba Telecom Services’ 64,000-square-foot Winnipeg data centre offers the same services as similar facilities around the world, but few take advantage of their climate like the 102-year-old Manitoba telecommunications leader.

“By operating here in a cold climate we’re actually able to use free air to cool the IT equipment in the data hall,” says Michele McClymont, manager of Products and Channels at MTS Data Centres. “For the majority of the year, we can actually just cool the equipment using the cold air outside.”

MTS uses the external air conditioning system to bring in cool air during the winter.

In a city where the temperature can be below 0°C (32 °F) for six months of the year, using outside air to cool the data hall means significant energy savings for the company and lower costs for clients who use its colocation, managed hosting and cloud services in the Tier 3 design-certified facility.

The lower cost of using MTS’ facility, which opened in 2015, isn’t the only benefit. Running air conditioning systems on non-renewable energy can have significant environmental impact compared to the clean hydroelectric power and free air cooling methods deployed at the MTS Data Centres.

“More and more companies are looking at environmental impact of data centres,” explains McClymont, adding even when the air conditioning units are on in the summer months, they’re being powered with renewable energy from Manitoba Hydro. “Because we use hydro-electric power here in Manitoba, it’s much more environmentally friendly than other sources of power some areas need to use.”

Check out the video to learn more about how MTS Data Centres take advantage of Winnipeg’s winter.