CH-09-026 -- Real-Time Data Center Energy Efficiency at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory PDF

With the issuing of the recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report to Congress (EPA, 2007), the issue of data center energy consumption is now a matter of intense industry focus. Key findings of the EPA report are that most data centers do not know what their energy efficiency is, and an equal number do not even know how to go about measuring such energy efficiency. Knowledge of a data center’s energy efficiency is now considered a competitive advantage by many world-class companies.

With funding from the Department of Energy, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has established its Energy Smart Data Center Test Bed (ESDC-TB), which is housed in a mixed-use facility. In the latest phase of this effort, PNNL has undertaken a major effort to instrument its ESDCTB, and the supporting facility, in order to quantify the energy efficiency of information technology (IT) equipment and infrastructure Under Test (ITUT), in real-time. In addition, PNNL has created a comprehensive software tool, FRED, to acquire, reduce, and display the power consumption of the various parts of the ESDC-TB and the supporting facility in real-time. FRED will soon have the capability to calculate and display the real-time energy efficiency of ITUT – the energy efficiency metric of choice is The Green Grid’s Data Center Infrastructure Efficiency (DCiE). This paper describes these capabilities in detail and also describes how to quantify the ITUT’s share of the total power consumption for major subsystems such as its facility chiller plant.

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