Raising the Energy Efficiency of Data Centers
Going Eco-friendly is the buzzword these days. From food to housing, from electronics to data centers, everyone is talking about energy saving. The efficiency of your data center is critical for your business. Understandably, in 2015 environmental responsibility needs to be taken into consideration.. In other words the cooling system is where the biggest efficiency impact can be made with a data center. Considering a data center of roughly 5,000-sq-ft data, cooling accounts for about 38% of total energy consumption.
Taking a holistic approach to improving cooling system efficiency will increase overall performance, availability and capacity. Most importantly it will also achieve better return on investment (ROI). With a holistic approach, a cooling system’s energy consumption can be significantly reduced.
A cooling assessment should be done to identify airflow issues and inefficiencies. This will allows you to understand the data center’s cooling system performance, in order to improve it. Temperatures are tracked regularly, and this acts as an early warning system of a possible data center outage. Cooling experts are important because they collect and analyze environmental data and assess cooling efficiency. Reports are prepared and recommendations suggested, to improve the efficiency of the cooling infrastructure.
By sealing moisture out of the data center, matching cooling and airflow to server requirements, adding blanking panels to any open U-slot and having periodic maintenance performed on cooling systems, data centers will enjoy better performance and become more cost effective in their operations. There are other approaches to implement to improve efficiency, such as fans in the cooling units, which can account for as much as 76% of unit energy consumption on chilled water units.
Certainly a holistic approach to improving cooling system efficiency simply means keeping tabs of the data center’s inefficiencies and implementing intelligent action.