The Revolutionary Data Center Retrofit

Dave Gallaher, National Snow and Ice Data Center
Otto Van Geet, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

Case Study: The Revolutionary Data Center Retrofit

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), located at the University of Colorado Boulder, disseminates satellite and in-situ data globally to researchers of the cryosphere, or areas covered with snow and ice. The data, from NASA Earth Observing System satellites and both NASA and National Science Foundation ground studies, are used in Earth science and climate studies. To make its mission-essential data center more energy efficient, the NSIDC in cooperation with NREL, developed a retrofit project that includes virtualization of IT equipment, a unique new HVAC design, and a photovoltaic solar powered UPS.

This project was a 3-year odyssey with the usual trials and successes. Our 1600 square foot data center used half the power of the 77,000 square foot building. Datacenters are approaching the total energy use the airline industry. The irony that the tools that NSIDC used to study climate change were causing some of the climate change really bothered us. With the completion of this project datacenter power utilization was cut 70% and the cooling energy was reduced more than 90%. Our payback on the project is 29 months and we have significantly lower maintenance and increased reliability.

There were many who said this project was impossible. But in fairness to the engineers, they often have good reason. In the sciences, when you write proposals, you have to push the edge in order to get funding. In engineering the client will not fund you with a novel idea as no one wants to be first. This project is a classic case of revolutionary, not evolutionary, engineering.

Our cooling system was built to replace the existing direct expansion (DX) computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units with eight indirect evaporative cooling units with a combination of airside economization. These units, can supply air that is 30°F to 40°F (16°C to 22°C) below the incoming air temperature without the use of compressors, while also producing warm, saturated air that is used to increase humidity in the datacenter on demand. The data center also includes a 50 kW roof-mounted photovoltaic (PV) array that charges a UPS to replace the need for a backup generator. The PV system generates about 75,000 kWh of electricity annually with surplus power being fed back to the grid. On sunny days the data center is energy neutral. Prior to the retrofit, the datacenter had an average PUE rating of 2.03; the retrofit project improves its PUE rating to an average of 1.15 while meeting all American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) standards.

This talk will provide data, lessons and information on what worked and what did not work as expected.

Learning Objectives

  • Understand the great potential of a low cost and high ROI data center retrofit.
  • The advantages of indirect evaporative cooling and controlled humidity maintenance.
  • Energy efficiency and climate change.

Biographies:

David Gallaher is a Senior Associate Scientist, Manager, Information Technology Services, National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), Cooperative Institute for Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado, Boulder, CO. With more than 30 years experience in Geosciences, IT technology and remote sensing. He has been at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado since 2007 as the Technical Services Manager and Nimbus project Principle Investigator. Previously, he served in a variety of remote sensing roles in the public and private sectors. He received a B.S. at the University of Illinois in 1979 and a M.S. at Northern Arizona University in 1984.

Activities: Dave built an award winning 'Green Data Center' at NSIDC that reduced the power consumption for cooling by 90% and total energy use by more than 70%. Dave is the lead investigator on a NSF grant for project to design and prototype a process (through creation of "Data Rods") for addressing time-series data as pure objects that will enable time-centric change analysis of massive remote sensing data. He was the PI on a project is to recover 1960's Nimbus satellite data to determine the sea ice extent during that decade. His latest project is to build a low cost CubeSat Passive microwave satellite to monitor polar ice conditions.

Mr. Van Geet is a Principal Engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), most of his work is in the Federal Energy Management Program. Prior to this assignment, Otto was the Senior Mechanical Engineer in the Site Operations group at NREL, and a Mechanical Engineer at Sandia National Labs. Mr. Van Geet has been involved in the design, construction, and operation of energy efficient research facilities such as labs and data centers as well as office and general use facilities. Mr. Van Geet was one of the founding members of the Labs21 program and provides technical guidance for the program. His experience also includes renewables screening and assessment, passive solar building design, use of design tools, photovoltaic (PV) system design for on and off grid applications, energy audits, and minimizing energy use. Mr. Van Geet author many technical reports and conference papers and has been recognized with many awards from professional associations including the 2007 Presidential Award for Leadership in Federal Energy Management and the 2011 GreenGov Green Innovation Presidential Award for the NREL RSF data center. On a personal note, he and his family live in an off grid passive solar house with a 2 kW PV/wind/hybrid power system and solar water heating that he designed and built 15 years ago. Mr. Van Geet is a Registered Professional Engineer, a Certified Energy Manager, a LEED Accredited Professional, and a Project Management Professional. Otto is a member of ASHRAE and ASES.

 

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