Cutting Back on Energy Use in Data Centers
Reducing power consumption becoming a top priority for facility managers
The most recent Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) shows that office buildings with data centers have significantly higher computing, cooling, and total electricity intensity (consumption per square foot) than office buildings without data centers. That is not a big surprise, given the large amounts of electricity needed to powe.r the servers and cooling equipment that typically operate around the clock in data centersA.
The scale of energy consumption may be more of a surprise, though, as estimates show that data center spaces can consume up to 100-200 times as much electricity as standard office spaces. With that large amount of power being used by a growing number of data centers, the pressure is on to implement energy-efficient design measures that can save money and reduce electricity use.
NEW STANDARD
Given the increasing focus on reducing energy use, ASHRAE recently created Standard 90.4-2016, “Energy Standard for Data Centers.”
“Energy use has probably not been the primary concern for data centers in the past, because many were built with greater attention given to the management of risk due to their mission-critical statuses,” said Ron Jarnagin, chair of the 90.4 committee.
Standard 90.4 is a code-intended performance standard designed to work in concert with Standard 90.1, “Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings,” which will still provide criteria, such as envelope, lighting, and water heating for data centers, said Jarnagin. “The heart of Standard 90.4 is contained in the mechanical and electrical sections and offers a performance-based compliance approach, which focuses on meeting targets for the mechanical and electrical equipment’s energy use. There is also an alternative compliance method that allows tradeoffs between the mechanical and electrical sections as long as the overall system’s design value is met.”
While the new standard applies to both new and existing data centers, it lacks specific requirements on how to design or retrofit data centers. That’s because it is a performance standard, so it does not provide prescriptive requirements, like airflow rates or types of equipment, but rather focuses on a performance approach that is more flexible and less constraining, said Jarnagin. “We worked very hard to craft this standard in a manner that does not stifle innovation in the data center industry while simultaneously offering criteria to help ensure energy savings.”
COOLING OPTIONS
Innovation is definitely afoot in the data center industry, with manufacturers offering many different types of cooling equipment that consume much less energy. “Computer room evaporative cooling [CREC] is seeing the highest adoption rates today,” said David Roden, cooling product marketing manager, Schneider Electric. “The use of CREC systems helps lower the power usage effectiveness [PUE] by shifting some of the electrical consumption of a typical data center for the cooling infrastructure to IT [information technology] power consumption, which helps to make the data center more efficient.”
High-efficiency DX systems with economizer modes of operation are also readily available, which enables data centers to be built with very low PUEs, and they consume no water, said Jack Pouchet, vice president of market development, Vertiv, formerly known as Emerson Network Power. “We also have new multi-mode chiller plants with economizer modes of operation that enable us to deploy chilled-water systems that are extremely efficient and use much less water than traditional systems with cooling towers.”
While server cooling technology is being driven by location, need, and reliability, there is a definite trend toward using free cooling whenever possible, including evaporative and outside air, said Scot Seifert, director of sales – data centers, Alfa Laval. “There are also new technologies and ways to implement free cooling, like server immersion cooling, underground, or in the ocean, but these are not practical for most data centers.”
