Data Center Energy Use Assessment Kit - A Case Study

Rod Mahdavi, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The U.S. Department of Energy's Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) is assisting Federal Agencies in identifying and evaluating energy efficiency opportunities in Federal data centers.

Energy and environmental monitoring are important activities to help understand energy performance of data centers. Monitoring can identify areas where improvement opportunity exists. Environmental monitoring can be used to provide a “map” of the air management and cooling system performance.  This visualization can be used to help detect and address deficiencies. Other monitoring can segregate the power used by various components and systems, as well as reveal data center power distribution losses. Many sensing points are required to create a reasonable map of data center thermal and energy use performance. This granular monitoring approach captures both environmental parameters (such as temperature, dew point, and pressure), and power use in the data center at key locations.

Granular monitoring helps data center stakeholders accomplish the following:

  • Identify baseline energy usage and improvement opportunities
  • Measure real-time power usage and calculate PUE, defined as total annual energy used divided by IT equipment annual energy use
  • Interpret temperature, humidity, and sub-floor pressure differential data from hundreds of sense points into intuitive live imaging maps
  • Monitor environmental conditions in order to stay within recommended and/or allowable ASHRAE ranges (or other manufacturer recommendations) and provide alerts when boundaries are exceeded.

This monitoring consists of three basic components: the wireless network, a console application, and a browser-based user interface. The principal objective of this technical workshop is to introduce a typical energy use assessment kit capability, which can be used to improve the robustness of the assessment. This process helps an assessorcreateand communicate an accurate understanding of data center operation to data center operators and management. It also provides detailed information that is useful in evaluating air management, environmental conditions, and PUE.

What is an assessment kit?

A portable and temporary wireless mesh assessment kit is comprised of temperature, relative humidity, and pressure sensors. Also included are power meters that can be installed on HVAC equipment.

The assessment kit produces data required for a detailed assessment of the data center. Its design incorporates the following considerations:

  • Measurement of environmental parameters (temperature, humidity, pressure) and power through a non-intrusive, non-interruptive process.
  • Monitoring of temperature and dew point at server intakes for compliance with ASHRAE or manufacturer recommendations. Air management improvement will provide grounds for increasing data center temperatures closer to the upper end of ASHRAE recommended or allowable ranges.
  • Creation of graphical reports (maps) for different parameters to provide an accurate visual understanding of data center operation.

This level of assessment and report can cost much more and take much longer if conventional wired technologies are used.

Learning Objectives

  • By the end of the session audience will become familiar with why energy use in data centers is targeted.
  • By the end of the session audience will become familiar with How energy in data centers use can be optimized?
  • By the end of the session audience will become familiar with what is the role of monitoring, what is monitoring kit?

Biographies:

Mr. Mahdavi is a program manager in the Environmental Energy Technology Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). He has worked extensively in the design of high tech facilities, data centers, clean rooms, and laboratories. During last few years he has assessed energy use in more than 30 major data centers and labs. He has published many papers and case studies that can be found under FEMP and Center of Expertise web sites. He is a LEED® accredited professional. He holds a masters degree in mechanical engineering and is a licensed Professional Engineer.

 

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