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Applying Energy Solutions to Real-World Data Centers

From the Fall 2008 issue of Energy Matters

Photo of floor-to-ceiling vertical black boxes in a data center.

The 2008 Data Center Demonstration project showcased energy-saving technologies in real-world data centers.

Practical application of technologies can demonstrate concrete solutions for saving energy in U.S. data centers. The Silicon Valley Leadership Group did just that, by assembling a team of technology partners and data center operators to showcase energy-saving technologies in real-world commercial data centers.

The 2008 Data Center Demonstration project is the first of its kind to apply actual technologies and best practices in many areas at once to real-world commercial data center operations, IT equipment, and site infrastructure. Facilitated by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, the project's goal was to demonstrate emerging and available technologies for data center operations; to determine if the improvements correlate with the energy projections in the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) report to Congress; and to encourage adoption of these technologies. The resulting Data Center Energy Forecast report shows that data centers can save up to 55% of energy costs by implementing technologies available today.

Evaluating Energy-Saving Scenarios

In 2007, the EPA released a report assessing energy efficiency opportunities for U.S. data centers. The Report to Congress on Server and Data Center Energy Efficiency (PDF 2.5 MB) outlines the energy use of U.S. data centers; opportunities and challenges in making data centers more energy efficient; and makes recommendations for near and long-term improvements. Download Adobe Reader.

The report presents three scenarios for potential electricity savings based on different levels of technology and best practices implementation:

  • "Improved operation" includes improvements that are no or low cost, such as eliminating unused servers, enabling power management on servers, and improving airflow. Potential electricity savings = more than 20%
  • "Best practice" includes adopting energy-efficient servers, moderately consolidating servers and storage, and boosting site infrastructure improvements by 70% (transformers, UPS, chillers, fans, pumps). Potential electricity savings = up to 45%
  • "State of the art" includes aggressively consolidating servers and storage; enabling power management at the data center level of applications, servers, and equipment; and improving site infrastructure efficiency by up to 80%, including the use of liquid cooling and combined heat and power. Potential electricity savings = up to 55%.

The chart below projects current electricity use against the different energy efficiency scenarios from 2007 through 2011.

This figure is a rectangular graph with a vertical line just to the right of center dividing the graph in two parts. The left hand side is labeled "Historical energy use." The right hand side is labeled "Future energy use projections." The graph's vertical axis on the left is labeled "annual electricity use (billion kWh/year)", and is numbered from 0 to 120. The horizontal axis shows years, and is labeled 2000 to 2010. The line on the graph flows upwards from near the left hand bottom corner toward the upper right hand corner. It is a solid line when going through the "Historical energy use" section, then breaks into five lines when crossing over into the "Future energy use projections" section of the graph. At this point, one of the lines becomes a dashed line, which veers down toward the lower right side of the graph. This line is labeled "State of the art scenario." Another line is a darker dotted line which flows down and then straight across horizontally above the first line. This is labeled "Best practices scenario." The third line consists of longer dashes, and this line first heads down to the right corner, then shoots upward toward the right. This is labeled "Improved operation scenario." The fourth line heads toward the right hand upper corner until it reaches about three quarters of the way up the right side, and is labeled "Current efficiency trends scenario." The fifth and top line heads higher up toward the right hand upper corner and is labeled "Historical trends scenario." Underneath the figure are the words "Source: The Report to Congress on Server and Data Center Energy Efficiency, 2007."

Source: The Report to Congress on Server and Data Center Energy Efficiency, 2007

Testing in Real-World Data Centers

The Data Center Demonstration project was initiated by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, with participation by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and support from the California Energy Commission. The project implemented 11 technology initiatives suggested in the EPA report, focusing on operations such as cooling, power distribution, consolidation, and optimization, and yielded 17 case studies. Read about the technologies and resulting energy, cost, and emissions savings in the Data Center Energy Forecast report.

A select group of data center operators hosted the technology initiatives within their facilities, and documented the energy savings and performance results. Partners and sponsors supplied equipment, technical expertise, and funding for the demonstrations. LBNL, DOE's principal research laboratory on data center efficiency, provided technical expertise and evaluation in one of the major demonstrations involving assessment of modular cooling systems, termed the "chill-off".

William Tschudi, LBNL program manager for data center energy efficiency, emphasizes the value of the project: "This series of demonstration projects illustrates very well that the opportunity for efficiency improvement lies in all areas of the computing and infrastructure chain. It also represents an unprecedented commitment from the companies that participated since they essentially self-selected the technologies to demonstrate, funded the implementation of the projects, and were very open in sharing results. The results show that projections in the EPA report to Congress are attainable and this is giving the industry added incentive to make changes."

Visit LBNL's Data Center Energy Management Web site.

Knowledge is Power

The project presents a wide range of technology case studies to help companies identify solutions to reduce energy use in their data centers. The studies conclude that best practice levels defined in the EPA report are achievable in all types of data centers. Future demonstration projects will implement novel IT and advanced cooling and power distribution technologies. DOE's Save Energy Now will help inform data center operators about the results of the project so that the solutions demonstrated in the Silicon Valley Leadership Group's project can be more widely deployed.

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