The First Facility Management Blog

Datacom center energy use is typically large and concentrated (it can be 100 times the watts per square foot of an office building), with operations running 24 hours, seven days a week, about three times the annual operating hours of most commercial properties.

As a result, issues such as sustainable design, energy efficiency, and operating cost become critically important for these facilities.

Guidance to assist those involved in the design, construction, commissioning, operation, implementation and maintenance of datacom equipment centers is available in a new book from ASHRAE, Best Practices for Datacom Facility Energy Efficiency.

“This book provides detailed information on the design of datacom facilities that will aid in minimizing life-cycle cost and maximizing energy efficiency,” said Tom Davidson. “The overall goal is to minimize total cost of ownership (TCO) for the end user, while helping to conserve energy resources on a global scale.”

Davidson is a member of ASHRAE’s technical committee on mission control facilities, technology spaces and electronic equipment, which wrote the book.

A study conducted by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on average data center power allocation showed that only 46% of power was used by information technology (IT) equipment such as servers, while 23% was used by HVAC cooling equipment, 8% by HVAC fans, 8% by uninterruptible power supply equipment losses, and 4 percent by lighting. Another 11% was attributed to other uses, such as miscellaneous electrical losses, support office area, etc.
“Since the infrastructure/energy cost is an increasing component of total cost of ownership, a strong emphasis must be placed on this cost to keep a datacom facility energy efficient and operating at the lowest cost to support the level of reliability and availability of the equipment it houses,” he said.

The book provides a listing of best practices in the areas of environmental criteria, mechanical equipment and systems, economizer cycles, airflow distribution, HVAC controls and energy management, electrical distribution equipment, datacom equipment efficiency, liquid cooling, total cost of ownership, and emerging technologies.