The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Wyoming Supercomputing Center
Peter Rumsey, Rumsey Engineers
Aaron Andersen, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has commissioned a new supercomputer facility to be built in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The new facility will be the first NCAR facility to earn LEED® certification for its design, construction, and operation. Measuring 108,000 square feet in total, with 15,000–20,000 square feet of raised floor, it will be built for 8 megawatts of power, with 4–5 megawatts for computing and 3–4 megawatts for cooling. The facility is being planned as the first net-zero energy data center in the world, with a targeted power use effectiveness of 1.1.
The Cheyenne-based facility is being developed in partnership with the University of Wyoming, the State of Wyoming; CheyenneLEADS; the Wyoming Business Council; and Cheyenne Light, Fuel and Power. It will contain some of the world's most powerful supercomputers dedicated to improving scientific understanding of climate change, severe weather, air quality, and other vital atmospheric science and geoscience topics. The center will also house a premier data storage and archival facility that holds irreplaceable historical climate records and other information. The University of Colorado at Boulder will serve as one of the center's founding partners with NCAR and Wyoming. NCAR expects these partnerships, stimulated by the data center, to lead to new and fruitful scientific collaborations. The center is expected to generate collaborations with other institutions and to be part of an effort to develop a cyber-collaboratory.
The project's stated design goals are to:
- Design a net-zero energy building with 100 percent wind power.
- Design to Tier II (Uptime Institute classification).
- Provide a facility that meets power usage effectiveness <1.1 (on a yearly basis).
- Achieve LEED Platinum certification (emphasizing low-energy system performance).
- Simplify and lower mechanical and electrical costs (e.g., eliminate mechanical chillers).
- Showcase unique features of building energy use.
This presentation will cover the integrated design process, where several very low-energy options were reviewed, and a waterside economizer system was chosen, partly because it offers flexibility in future water-cooled and air-cooled information technology equipment. It will address the strategies that allow the design to achieve such a low PUE, and talk about the challenges involved in planning and designing a 100 percent wind-powered data center.
Biographies:
Peter Rumsey is a national leader in the design of low-energy buildings and the founder of Rumsey Engineers in Oakland, California . Rumsey Engineers was the first engineering firm in the United States to achieve four LEED Platinum projects. Mr. Rumsey has designed mechanical systems for data centers, clean rooms, and laboratories that are among the most energy efficient in the U.S. His firm's projects have received many local and national awards from prominent industry organizations, including the Association of Energy Engineers and the AIA. He is a registered professional engineer in 10 states, a certified energy manager, a Senior Fellow of Rocky Mountain Institute, and an ASHRAE Fellow. He is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley's mechanical engineering program and is a frequent lecturer at industry events, conferences, and colleges and universities, including U.C. Berkeley and Stanford University. The focus of Mr. Rumsey's career has been transforming the building industry by designing affordable, energy efficient buildings.