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conventional battery-based double-conversionuninterruptible-power-supply (UPS) systems,power is converted from alternating current todirect current back to alternating current, resultingin large energy losses, which are compoundedby the cooling energy neededto remove the resulting heat.Making matters worse, theefficiency of the power conver-sion drops dramatically whenUPS systems are lightly loaded, which almost always is the casebecause of desires to maintainredundancy and keep loads around 40 percent.Figure 1 shows wide variations in UPS efficiency. With a more-efficient UPS system, an immedi-ate reduction in overall electrical-power demand
W
ith annual energy costs per squarefoot that are 10 to 30 times thoseof typical office buildings, datacenters are an important target in energy-savingefforts. They operate continuously, which meanstheir electricity demand alwaysis contributing to peak utility-system demand, an importantfact given that utility pricingincreasingly reflects time-de-pendent tariffs. Energy-effi-ciency best practices can holdthe key to significant savings, while improving reliability and yielding othernon-energy benefits.This article will summarize best practicesdeveloped from an extensive study of energy usein 22 data centers.
SPECIFY EFFICIENT UPS SYSTEMS ANDIT-EQUIPMENT POWER SUPPLIES
One of the best ways to improvedata-center energy efficiency is toreduce heat loads attributed to powerconversion within both information-technology (IT) equipment andthe data-center infrastructure. With
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William Tschudi, PE, is a principal inves-tigator, Evan Mills, PhD, a staff scientist,and Steve Greenberg, PE, a staff mechan-ical engineer for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif.,while Peter Rumsey, PE, is principal of  Rumsey Engineers in Oakland, Calif.
Findings—and resulting best practices—froma study of energy use in 22 data centers
Data-Center 
Measuring and Managing
Energy Use
By
 WILLIAM TSCHUDI, PE
,
EVAN MILLS, PHD
,and
STEVE GREENBERG, PE
,Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,and
PETER RUMSEY, PE
,Rumsey Engineers
Percent of rated active power load
    E   f   f    i   c    i   e   n   c   y ,   p   e   r   c   e   n   t
100959085807570200 40 60 80 100Flywheel UPSDouble-conversion UPSDelta-conversion UPS
FIGURE 1. Factory measurements of UPS efficiency using linear loads.
 
of 20 to 30 percent can be achieved. Additionally, downsizing HVAC andupstream electrical systems (in new construction) can result in capital-costsavings and excess capacity. A similar phenomenon occurs
within
IT equipment, such as servers, wheremultiple power conversions typically occur. Conversion from alternatingcurrent to direct current and thenmultiple direct-current conversionscontributes to IT-equipment energy loss. Lawrence Berkeley National Labo-ratory (LBNL) found a wide rangeof efficiencies in power supplies usedin servers. With more-efficient powersupplies, additional energy- and capital-cost savings can be obtained.
OPTIMIZE AIR MANAGEMENT
 As computing power skyrockets, datacenters are beginning to experiencehigher concentrated heat loads. In facili-ties of all sizes—from small data centershoused in office buildings to large datacenters essentially dedicated to IT equip-ment—effective air distribution has asignificant impact on energy efficiency and equipment reliability. Energy bench-marking using a metric that comparesenergy used for IT equipment to energy used for HVAC systems (Figure 2) re-veals that some data centers perform bet-ter than others. For this metric, a highernumber indicates that proportionately more electrical power is being providedfor computational equipment than forcooling. In other words, the HVACsystem is more effective at removingheat from IT equipment. The variationfrom worst to best is
 fivefold 
. This can beattributed to a number of factors, includ-ing how cooling is generated and distrib-uted; however, air management is a key part of effective and efficient cooling.Improving “air management,” or opti-mizing the delivery of cool air and thecollection of waste heat, can involvemany design and operational practices. Air-cooling improvements often canbe made by addressing:• The short-circuiting of heated airover the top of or around server racks.• The short-circuiting of cooled airback to air-conditioning units throughopenings in raised floors, such as cableopenings and misplaced floor tiles withopenings.• Misplaced raised-floor air-dischargetiles.• Poorly located computer-room air-conditioning (CRAC) units.• Inadequate ceiling height or anundersized hot-air-return plenum.• Air blockages, which are common with piping and large amounts of cablingunder raised floors.• Openings in racks that allow airbypass (“short-circuiting”) from hotareas to cold areas or vice versa.• Poor airflow through IT-equipmentracks caused by restrictions in rack structure.• IT equipment with side or top airdischarge adjacent to front-to-rear-discharge configurations.• Inappropriate—either too high ortoo low—underfloor pressurization.One’s general goal should be to mini-mize or eliminate inadvertent mixingbetween cooling air supplied to ITequipment and hot air rejected from theequipment. Air distribution in a well-designed system can reduce operatingcosts, reduce investment in HVACequipment, allow increased utilization,and improve reliability by reducingprocessing interruptions and equipmentdegradation attributed to overheating.Solutions to common air-distributionproblems include:• The use of “hot-aisle/cold-aisle”arrangements, by which racks of com-puters are stacked with the hot dischargesides facing each other and the cold inletsides facing each other (Figure 3).
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Engineering
DATA-CENTER ENERGY USE
    R   a   t    i   o   o   f    I    T   e   q   u    i   p   m   e   n   t   t   o    H    V    A    C    l   o   a    d
4.03.53.02.52.01.51.00.50.0Data-center number1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
FIGURE 2. Data-center HVAC effectiveness.
Return-air plenumHotaisleHotaisleColdaislePhysicalseparationRaised floor
FIGURE 3. Typical hot-aisle/cold-aisle arrangement. Cold air can be distributed from above or below.
 
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• Sealing openings in underfloorsystems.• Blanking unused spaces in equip-ment racks.• The careful placement of CRACunits and floor-tile openings, oftenthrough the use of computational-fluid-dynamics modeling.• Collecting heated air through highoverhead plenums or ductwork and effi-ciently returning it to the air handler(s).• Minimizing obstructions to properairflow.
CAPITALIZE ON FREE COOLING
Data-center IT-equipment coolingloads are nearly constant throughout theyear. Water-side economizers utilizingevaporative cooling (usually provided by cooling towers) can be used to indirectly produce chilled water to cool a datacenter when outdoor conditions are mildor at night. This “free cooling” is bestsuited to climates with wet-bulb temper-atures lower than 55 F for 3,000 or morehours a year. Free cooling can improvethe efficiency of a chilled-water plant by lowering chilled-water approach temper-atures (i.e., precooling chilled waterbefore it enters a chiller) or eliminate theneed for compressor cooling, dependingon the outdoor conditions and overallsystem design. With free cooling, chilled- water-plant energy consumption can bereduced by up to 75 percent, with relatedimprovements in reliability and mainte-nance through reductions in chilleroperation. Because this solution does notaffect the quality of air entering IT equip-ment, it can be an economical alternativeto air-side economizers in the retrofit of a chilled-water-cooled data center. Air-side economizers also can providefree cooling; however, their use is some- what controversial. While some IT-baseddata centers routinely use outside air without apparent complications, othersare concerned about contaminationand thermal control in their equipmentrooms. Having seen the use of outsideair result in energy-efficient operation inseveral data centers, LBNL is planningto examine the validity of contaminationconcerns. The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Condi-tioning Engineers’ data-center technicalcommittee, TC 9.9, is expected todevelop guidance. For now, simply usinga standard commercial-building econo-mizer is not recommended—not with-out an engineering evaluation of thelocal climate and contamination condi-tions.Temperature and humidity fluctua-tions, as well as particulate and gaseouspollutants, must be considered. Mitiga-tion may involve filtration or othermeasures.If outside air is to be used for cooling,
DATA-CENTER ENERGY USE
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