Consulting-Specifying Engineer - October 2007 - (Page 43)

current initiatives—the EPA study provides comprehensive information on others): • The Green Grid already has started down the path in measuring, benchmarking and developing best practices for energy-efficient data centers. • Lawrence Berkeley National Labs is developing more robust and user-friendly assessment tools to identify areas of improvement in data center energy use. • Major computer manufacturers publicly have announced various programs that achieve energy savings. These programs are available to consumers. • The EPA is currently exploring “whole building energy use data for stand-alone mission-critical facilities, with the goal of creating a building-level metric.” The first portion of this work is expected at the end of this year. •The Uptime Institute also published its opinion on the EPA report. In addition to other key areas of study that are suggested, it proposes that a green data center have four separate performance factors: • IT hardware productivity • Maximum computational performance per unit of internal power • Efficient delivery of power at the plug to IT hardware components • Efficient site infrastructure. The missing link While either tangentially touched upon or implied in the initiatives, there is little discussion on the environmental impacts that are unique to data centers. In general, in addition to consuming tremendous amounts of electricity, large enterprise data centers have the following attributes that make them ideal candidates for “greening”: • Typically one-story, large-footprint buildings • For security reasons, often built on undeveloped, “greenfield” sites • Often built in areas where electricity costs are low • Typically sited away from public transportation • Can consume vast quantities of water for cooling • Can produce large amounts of water discharge into the municipal sewer system • Use large amounts of chemical for water treatment • Require on-site storage of fuel for generators • Require on-site storage of water for cooling • Designed with multiple levels of redundancy in systems and equipment • Very high initial and ongoing operational cost • Need to be flexible and scalable without any shutdown or interruption to operations • Have massive amounts of on-site, diesel engine generators used only in case of utility failure • Use 100% outside air for battery room ventilation • Use large banks of batteries to ride through transfers to generator power • Often will have “mirror” sites with duplicate facilities, each acting as a backup to the other in case of a major regional catastrophe • Have rigorous maintenance, operation and change management procedures • Typically not many people are in the building on a permanent basis • Buildings are internally loaded where cooling is required nonstop • High concentrations of IT hardware and cabling where off-gassing of VOCs and other indoor pollutants may be of concern • Business needs will often dictate amounts and types of computer equipment, with a continual cycle of upgrade and/or replacement of relatively new equipment • Power use monitoring typically is done at a very granular level, down to the circuit level in some cases • Monitoring, control, trending and warning systems tend to be very robust and sophisticated • Design, construction and commissioning schedules are extremely aggressive • Projects are often highly confidential and information regarding technical details of the facility are not allowed to be disclosed • Require very strict indoor temperature, humidity and filtration levels to maintain an acceptable environment for the IT equipment. We need a program that uses LEED as a starting point to identify data centers as a specific building type, addressing not only the nuances that make data centers difficult to achieve LEED certification, but also address the opportunities that are exclusively found in data centers. Framework for analysis The culmination of energy-reduction ideas could result in a rating system that takes a broad and deep look at all of the elements that affect the outcome and attempt to distill the ideas into a clear, objective assessment, not unlike the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating system. If the Energy Optimization Scorecard approach is taken, it does the following: • Addresses both financial and non-financial elements from a variety of perspectives, in an objective and unbiased fashion • Provides information to corporate leadership to assist strategic policy formation and achievement • Develops a set of measures that provides a fast but comprehensive view of the strategy and measurements • Provides an optimized picture of overall performance highlighting areas that need to be improved or augmented based on anticipated changes in future state • Assists in clarifying vision and strategies and provides a means to translate these into action • Provides a comprehensive view that overturns the traditional approach of collecting and analyzing data as isolated, independent functions. A E H L Consulting-Specifying Engineer • OCTOBER, 2007 43

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Consulting-Specifying Engineer - October 2007

Consulting-Specifying Engineer - October 2007 Contents On the Web In the News M/E Roundtable How To Beat the Energy Codes Professional Practices Codes & Standards A Capital Job on Engineered Buiding Systems Going Green in Data Centers Overcurrent Protection: Fuses or Breakers? Third-Party Liability Management Report New Products Product Spotlight Jobs/Classifieds Specifier's Notebook

Consulting-Specifying Engineer - October 2007

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