Consulting-Specifying Engineer - August 2008 - (Page 29) PARTICIPANTS M/E Roundtable Carl Cottuli Vice President of Data Center Science Center APC West Kingston, R.I. Critical look at power This month’s panel discusses what facilities need mission critical power and at what levels, successful design schemes, technological advancements, and commissioning for these facilities. BY MELISSA HILLEBRAND, Associate Editor Bill Kosik, PE, LEED AP Chicago Managing Principal/ Energy and Environmental Initiatives Leader EYP Mission Critical Facilities Chicago CSE: The term “mission critical” applies to data centers, telecom centers, and healthcare facilities. What other types of facilities could be defined as mission critical? BRIAN RENER: Mission critical could apply to semiconductor manufacturing (clean rooms); pharmaceutical, hazardous biological, or chemical labs; certain security or public safety related projects including 911 call centers, emergency or disaster response centers; military or government agencies; airport air traffic towers; and other critical transportation centers. The common theme of these facilities is the need for highly reliable and stable power systems to support critical functions. BILL KOSIK: There are other obvious choices such as electronic trading operations, laboratories, and military and defense facilities, but mission critical really refers to any enterprise that needs total continuity of operation regardless of disruptions due to loss of grid power, severe weather, equipment failure, or even such mundane things such as equipment maintenance and upgrades. It really boils down to any business that relies on technology to generate revenue and wants to keep its customers (and shareholders) satisfied. ED SPEARS: Additional mission critical applications include: air traffic control, broadcast TV, industrial applications, water treatment/ water quality monitoring facilities, and, of course, nuclear power generation. CSE : A few year s bac k , we u sed to talk about mission critical power reliability in terms of the number of nines: 99.99% uptime meant four nines, etc . Do all mission critical facilities need the same level of reliability? How do you decide what level is necessary for a specific facility? BRAD WALTER: No. The level of reliability required depends on a number of factors including the economic impact of disrupting the critical process, and the redundancy among facilities and within the process itself. Determining the level of redundancy requires a value analysis in conjunction with the customer and hopefully extending to the end-user clients concerning the processes and technical analysis of the effect of infrastructure failure on the processes. CARL COTTULI: Maintainability and expected service level are a few key drivers. The combination of these numerical values will produce a targeted nines value, based on the amount of time the system needs to be available in a given year. The nines value will drive decisions around the topology combined with the maintenance requirements, which in turn drive decisions about the level of reliability around N, N+1, 2N, etc. RENER: I think both uptime numbers and basic tiers should be used as a guideline rather than a guarantee. There are so many variables associated with each site and project. Systems are not always easy to fit exactly into a specific type of tier or uptime statistic. Reliability is never a static number over the life of a facility. Human factors play an important role in ongoing reliability. Further, if a power system Brian A. Rener, PE, LEED AP President, Central Region Sebesta Blomberg & Assocs. Chicago Ed Spears Marketing Program Manager for Technical Sales Eaton Cleveland Brad Walter Dir. of Applications Engineering and System Development Active Power Austin, Texas Consulting-Specifying Engineer • AUGUST 2008 29
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