Groves Green IT

19 North American Utilities talk about data center energy efficiency

Last week I was sitting in an office in Seattle, a guest of Seattle City Light, for the 2nd Face to Face meeting of the Utility IT Energy Efficiency Coalition founded by Mark Bramfitt of Pacific Gas & Electric, (www.pge.com/hightech).  About half the members of the online collaborative community of the Coalition participated including representatives from Duke Power, Pacific Corp, Oncor, Bonneville Power Authority, as well as municipal utilities such as Los Angeles Department of Water & Power, Palo Alto, Sacramento Municipal, Idaho Power, Madison General Electric, (and more) and from Canada, BC Hydro.

This group of program managers has as their task creating incentives and rebates that will accelerate data center energy efficiency.  The morning agenda is lecture-style, with presentations from IDC (market research) Matt Eastwood, describing server growth on a global scale, Andrew Fanara and Arthur Howard with updates on what EPA's server specifications are progressing, as well as Benn Schreiber of Citrix discussing the growth and direction of server virtualization over the next 3-5 years.

The afternoon was spent discussing progress reached by the members - how many programs they are supporting, their challenges with regulators as well as market forces, and the obstacles that they run while trying to save megawatts in their data center markets.  Several utility program managers joined the informally named "One Megawatt Club" to set a goal for themselves over the next 12 months, with a set of peers who are similarly trying to save energy.

Vendors who know about this coalition have already been phoning Mark Bramfitt and his counterparts at BC Hydro, Austin Electric, Sempra Utilities and elsewhere.  The key to a program such as those in California is that vendors need to bring in the customers who can show energy saved.  If you don't have a local customer, don't spend your time tracking down Mark Bramfitt. Vendors seeking qualification for inclusion in utility incentive programs should understand the goals that utilities have: driving market adoption of technologies that "feature superior energy efficiency and delivering on energy savings claims." (Mark Bramfitt's own words) He goes on to say: "The vetting process is technically rigorous and often includes field measurement and monitoring to justify savings claims, so actual customer engagements are a key requirement."   

By the way, you've seen me use the term Novel Innovative Collaboration in this blog previously. PG&E's sponsorship of this utility coalition provides over $1 million in intellectual capital for use by other utilities with no direct bottom line contribution. It is truly industry leadership, meant to accelerate data center energy efficiency across the continent.  If your utility has energy efficiency programs, but nothing earmarked for data center energy efficiency, they need to hear about this coalition.  Contact Mark at 415 973 2933.

Before I departed on Saturday from Seattle, it started to rain, and I mentioned to a street-side coffee seller on Pike Street that I hadn't brought my umbrella with me from San Francisco. And while he was fixing my mocha, he said,  "Here, please take mine and just bring it back before 6 p.m."  He had never met me before and just trusted me to come back 7 hours later.  Is that pretty typical behavior in Seattle? If so, why aren't we all living there?  Have a green day!

Data Centers Save Energy Now Workshop at Labs21

Yesterday, I listened to Bill Tschudi of the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs (LBNL) & Peter Rumsey of Rumsey Engineering give the above workshop at the Labs21 conference in San Jose.  Dale Sartor had compiled the materials to be presented.

I shared the audience with many federal sector data center operations managers as well as some midwest and east coast corporate data center managers.  The education sector was well represented as well, as many of the traditional labs designers came to learn about best practices in data center energy efficiency as an adjunct to their lab "business". 

One observation that I have made in the past and was again discernible is that California is several years ahead of other states in piloting air-side economizer designs.  Of course, climate works to our favor in California. But other areas of the country could benefit from air side economizers as well. And I think the entire audience was surprised by how much.

In a chart sub-titled "Annnual HVAC Energy as a % of IT Energy with No Humidity Controls" San Francisco can enjoy a 37% savings with airside economizers.  If I can read barcharts, it seems like Duluth MN, Fairbanks Alaska, Boise Idaho, and to a lessor extent Chicago Illinois will earn similar savings.  El Passo Texas and Baltimore Maryland, as examples, might have just 27% savings.

In a companion chart, subtitled "Annual HVAC Energy as a % of IT Energy with Humidity Controls" San Francisco increases their saings 52% using air side economizer with humidificaiton. All the cities listed above have similar or greater gains.  The city where air side economizer clearly offers little payback is Miami Florida.  Even Houston Texas, Phoenix Texas, and Memphis Tennessee  benefit from air side economizers with humidification.

These slides will be available online from both Labs21 and DOE websites over the next few weeks but I don' have the exact dates yet. When I get the URLs I'll publish them here.

After you've looked at those slides, be sure to read the following ones that concern particulate matter - because the audience fairly gasped when Bill Tschudi interrupted Peter and said, "Uh, no, you aren't reading that slide right. That isn't the particulate matter in the data center - that is the particulate matter in the parking lot", which is to say, LBNL thinks all of our servers can survive nicely with outside air in the parking lot AND in our data centers.

If  you are not using airside economizers, or living with 80% humidity, then turn off the humidification features.  "Humidification is for old technologies", I wrote down in my notes. Moving toward dewpoint, not relative humidity, as the metric is the goal. Control humidity at the inlet space, not at the air-conditioners, because it should only be applied to the air returning from the hot aisles.  Humidity controls are a point of failure and are hard to maintain so avoid them wherever you can.

Labs21 Save Energy Now Workshop on Sept 15, 2008

Background to my interview with Dale Sartor of Lawrence Berkeley National Labs   

Data centers have only recently been included in the Labs21 definition of eligible sites because laboratories (the original focus of the Labs21 events) and data centers increasingly share a significant computing environment. Your organization can become a Labs21 partner by sharing energy and environmental performance results as well as report project results.

Dale: You know I always enjoy sitting across the table from another silver haired young person such as myself(!) and yakking about Energy Efficiency opportunities.

With regard to the upcoming conference in San Jose, California I understand you are the catalyst behind the one day workshop to be offered on September 15, 2008.  I also understand that Bill Tschudi and Peter Rumsey will be delivering the workshop that has been created along the lines of the DOE and EPA federal government objectives for private and public sector data centers.

Can you describe in a paragraph how this data center workshop will differ significantly from others at previous conferences?

Most data center conferences are a series of independent speakers. This workshop is a comprehensive and integrated full day introduction of energy efficiency opportunities in data centers taught by only two instructions, one coming from an R&D and market transformation background and the other from industry (design engineering of efficient data centers).  The workshop will provide a great foundation to get the most out of the Data Center track of Labs 21 that will follow on the 17th and 18th of September.

From your perspective, is there one best practice that most data center designers are not following?

There are no silver bullets. The workshop covers opportunities in IT hardware and software, electrical systems, environmental control, air management, cooling system including central plants, and liquid cooling.  Additional information resources and tools are made available.

I was on the phone last week with a utility spokesperson describing a state of the art data center that was set to be launched over the next six weeks and when I asked whether outside air/free air was part of the design, he said no. Why are data center design engineers still shying away from this energy efficient design option?

Old thinking and fear that contaminants will cause problems with the IT equipment...While some environments do post threats, our LBNL research shows that most outside air poses NO threats to reliability.  The workshop will review that research as well as measures to mitigate any concerns (e.g. improved filtration).  If despite the evidence, including many existing, operational data centers, engineers are still reluctant, they can utilize "free cooling" from a tower-side economizer.  Future data centers may be designed for liquid-cooling at temperatures available from cooling towers, thus eliminating the first cost and operating cost of the chillers.

Dale: would you elaborate on this phrase "Opportunities to increase computational efficiency"?  I understand Bill or Peter will be lecturing on that topic.

1. Increasing computational efficiency includes:
2. consolidation of IT resources
3. load management to optimize IT equipment (i.e., virtualization)
4. power management - to turn off or manage in sleep mode, IT equipment when possible
5. management of storage resources, such as MAID
6. high efficiency servers

Help me out please, Dale.  How does the federal Labs21 initiative fit into the EPA Energy Star for Buildings program and the DOE's Data Center Industrial Buildings programs?

Labs21 is sponsored by EPA and DOE, however, not the energy efficiency program side, more from the facilities groups in those organizations. Therefore, there is no formal relaition to Energy  Star products or buildings.  On the DOE side, Labs21 is supported by the Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP)  under DOE's EERE, (office of Energy efficiency and Renewable Energy).

What kinds of professions would you like to see in the audience in San Jose?

The target audience is data center facilities owners, operators, managers and designers, as well as IT managers.        See you there! Have a Green Day!

thinking outside the box/rack/room

Aerodynamically designed. Makes me think of those giant travel posters with the ship's hull 4x as large as the top deck and cabins. Like an airstream RV from the 4 0s, or a steam engine from the 30s. So how come we don't design data centers with aerodynamic design in mind? Why wouldn't we dispense with the four corner box and design more like Frank Gehry with rounded edges and upward drafts to move hot air out more efficiently? Please don't say it is more costly because Frank Gehry says his designs are no more expensive than ordinary buildings since the tolerance for imperfection where the joints meet, is much wider.  And of course they are more beautiful.

So  wouldn't you want to design not only your facility walls but also your cabinets and racks in something other than straight lines and 90 degree corners? Maybe you would tilt the front top of the rack forward to force heat out the back more easily, or perhaps you would push the air at a 150 degree angle instead of a straight 180 degrees if that had less resistance? Maybe you design less room at the top of the rack and wider feet so that the compression pushes hot air out faster. Boxes (racks in this case) were designed to save space, but now we are designing to cool systems. Different designs for different purposes.

Here is what wikipedia says: Aerodynamics is important in a number of applications other than aerospace engineering. It is a significant factor in any type of vehicle design, including automobiles. It is important in the prediction of forces and moments in sailing. It is used in the design of large components such as hard drive heads. Structural engineers also use aerodynamics, and particularly aeroelasticity, to calculate wind loads in the design of large buildings and bridges. Urban aerodynamics seeks to help town planners and designers improve comfort in outdoor spaces, create urban microclimates and reduce the effects of urban pollution. The field of environmental aerodynamics studies the ways atmospheric circulation and flight mechanics affect ecosystems. The aerodynamics of internal passages is important in heating/ventilation, gas piping, and in automotive engines where detailed flow patterns strongly affect the performance of the engine. See my related blog about caves.