Going GREEN - Data Centers
How “efficient” is your Data Center?
The Commissioning Time window is one of the few times a Data Center can be fully tested at various load levels to provide the data to understand how efficient the Data Center can be operated at different load conditions at different locations within the Data Center. No two Data Centers get fitted up in the same manner, this can cause headaches for operations teams to understand how to balance energy utilization to maintain the most efficient balance.
This required Coordination during the Commissioning to collect the data after the steps in loads after the Data Center has settled after a step, is critical to developing a baseline of efficiency data. For Data Centers using Air Economization, Air Distribution Efficiencies, Water Economization methods, this is the one time these can be switched back and forth to demonstrate the operations at different load levels with in the Data Center. Therefore, It is required to be done during the Level 5 Commissioning as this will be one of the few times the loads can be varied without impact to the Data Center Operations. The Data Collected is used to calculate the PUE and DCiE for the site and differentiate the various Efficiency modes and Air Distribution methods. These are defined as the Power Utilization Efficiency ( PUE) and the Data Center Infrastructure Efficiency (DCiE).
The PUE is calculated by recording the Total Utility Loads divided by the Total IT Loads expressed in decimal fractions to the third place, i.e. 3965kW/2250kW=1.762.
The DCiE is calculated by recording the Total IT Load divided by the Total Utility Load expressed as a Percentage to two decimal places, i.e., 2250kW/3965kW=56.75%
This data can be refined by using the data collected allowing for transformer losses if metering points are not provided at the PDU level, or if data is not collected to a central monitoring system. However, since most all Data Centers use transformers in the load paths, this would not provide a true measurement against the industry standards. Data Environments recommends the data be kept as “clean” as possible to be used by the operations for load management and improvements.
Please contact Data Environments for Data Collection methods and procedures for presentation of this data.
Find Out How “efficient” is your Data Center.