"DC Pro"– The U.S. Department of Energy's New Tool for Assessing Data Center Energy Performance

Kim Traber, Rumsey Engineers
Paul Mathew, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and LBNL have partnered to extend DOE's "Save Energy Now" program to data centers. In collaboration with industry experts, this effort is producing a new training and assessment protocol and set of tools to help data center owners and operators track the energy performance of their facilities and identify opportunities for cost-effective improvements.

At the core of this new program is "DC Pro," a set of software tools that can establish an initial facility profile, suggest areas of opportunity, track energy performance over time, and benchmark a facility's performance in relation to its peers. They will also perform initial calculations of the cost-effectiveness of implementing specific energy-saving measures for the information technology equipment, on-site electric generation and distribution, and HVAC system. All of these tools will communicate with a common database to allow sharing of data between the tools to and promote integration of additional, future tools.

The point of entry to DC Pro is the Profiling Tool, a Web-based program that presents the user with a questionnaire, pre-loaded with defaults and equipped with a robust help system. In about an hour, the Profiling Tool will have captured enough data to allow it to create an initial estimated Data Center Infrastructure Efficiency (DCIE) benchmark and to suggest potential energy-saving measures. The user can then enter actual energy consumption and cost figures (from utility bills, on-site sub-meters, or both) if desired. This will result in a more accurate DCIE estimate.

The main intent of the Profiling Tool is to engage data center operators and encourage them to explore energy-efficiency opportunities in more detail. If successful in this regard, the other DC Pro tools will pick up the information collected by the Profiling Tool and allow the user to develop more detailed savings estimates of specific measures.

Biographies:

Kim Traber joined Rumsey Engineers in 2001. For several years, he has managed all consulting work connected with the High-Tech Design Assist program for Pacific Gas & Electric. Kim's analysis experience includes cleanroom and datacenter benchmarking work for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Pacific Gas and Electric; market studies of Fan Filter Units for Pacific Gas & Electric; and detailed energy analysis analysis of HVAC systems for a wide range of building types in the commercial and industrial sector. His design experience encompasses several notable Rumsey Engineers projects, including the Carnegie Institution of Washington's Global Ecology Center, on the campus of Stanford University; and the Tahoe Center of Environmental Sciences in Incline Village Nevada, Nevada's first LEED® Platinum building.

Kim has a Bacherlor of Science in mechanical engineering with an emphasis in alternative energy systems from the University of California at Berkeley. Before joining Rumsey Engineers, he designed windfarm monitoring systems for Otech Engineering in Davis, California; coordinated a 20-person field team for a demand-side energy management project for DMC of Oakland, California; and was instrumental in the development of Urban Ecology, an Oakland non-profit organization dedicated to building ecologically and socially healthy cities.

Paul Mathew is a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he conducts applied research and market transformation activities on energy use in buildings. His current work is focused on energy efficiency and green design for laboratories and other high-tech buildings, as well as energy benchmarking tools and techniques. In addition to his technical research and consulting, he also teaches courses on energy-efficient design. Prior to joining LBNL, he worked at Enron Energy Services and the Center for Building Performance at Carnegie Mellon University. He has a Bachelor's degree in Architecture, and a Ph.D. in Building Performance and Diagnostics.

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