Lucasfilm Data Center Assessment Reveals Energy Savings
From the Fall 2008 issue of Energy Matters
The data center energy assessment at LucasFilm identified 15 ways the company could save energy and costs.
DOE's Industrial Technologies Program (ITP) has expanded its Save Energy Now initiative to include U.S. data centers. In an effort to help industry explore this new area of potential savings, DOE has conducted an assessment at the energy-intensive data center of Lucasfilm. The results reveal steps companies can take to reduce data center energy consumption and improve efficiency.
Movie Downtime Equals Energy Savings for Lucasfilm
The data center at Lucasfilm Ltd. in San Francisco, California, is crucial to delivering large volumes of data and high-resolution images to the desktops of graphic artists, game developers, and motion picture directors. Known for creating such award-winning movies as "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones," Lucasfilm also operates the largest computer network in the entertainment industry.
The 13,500-square-foot facility houses a render farm (cluster of computers that work around the clock to process digital images); file servers, storage systems, and more than 3,000 AMD processors. After evaluating a variety of energy use data that was collected over several weeks, the assessment team identified 15 ways Lucasfilm could save energy, which were narrowed down to seven measures that were deemed practical based on estimated implementation costs and payback periods. These included:
- Remove redundant uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems
- Turn servers off during downtime (in between major movie projects)
- Stage chillers to maintain high load factor
- Operate UPS in switched by-pass mode
- Improve air flow
- Implement water-side economizer
- Install lighting controls.
These recommendations have the potential to save Lucasfilm approximately $343,000 in cost savings and more than 3.1 million kWh in energy savings. With implementation costs of $429,500, the company would achieve a simple payback of 1.2 years. Read the full assessment summary (PDF 303 KB). Download Adobe Reader.
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