ASHRAE/DOE Save Energy Now Data Centers Workshop
Whether they are in a closet or a standalone building, data centers of all sizes and uses are growing in both quantity and importance in today’s high-tech world. Energy use in these computer centers can be up to 100 times more intensive than other commercial and institutional buildings, eclipsing any gains in efficiency and renewable energy utilization. Significant opportunities are available for improving computational energy efficiency as well as the efficiency of the infrastructure that provides power and cooling to the computer equipment.
This one-day course jointly developed by The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) and The U.S. Department of Energy will provide information on energy efficiency strategies to improve data center energy performance. It will be targeted toward data center operators and will be useful for information technology (IT) professionals, as well as facility professionals. The course is based, in part, on the ASHRAE data center book series, which provides a common knowledge base that can be shared among IT and facility organizations. This shared knowledge helps to identify more comprehensive efficiency opportunities that are sometimes lost because of poor communications between these key groups. Optimum performance requires a holistic systems approach, and an integrated data center operational team is most desirable.
Attendees will learn about:
- Major energy use in data centers
- Opportunities to increase computational efficiency
- Energy intensity growth
- Benchmarking opportunities (e.g., how do I stack up?)
- Best practices to improve infrastructure efficiency
- Extending the life and effective capacity of existing data centers
- Technologies coming down the R&D pipeline and lessons learned from demonstrations
- Information and technical assistance resources
Specific best practices that will be described are:
- Air management (e.g., hot and cold aisle isolation)
- Environmental conditions for data centers and IT equipment
- Right sizing (e.g., designing for high part load efficiency and growth)
- Central chilled water plant optimization
- Efficient air handling and controls
- Electrical distribution
- “Free” cooling
- Humidity control
- Liquid cooling
- Power chain improvement