Data Centre Cooling Air Performance Metrics

CIBSE Technical Symposium, DeMontfort University, Leicester UK
6th and 7th September 2011

Data centre energy consumption has grown significantly in recent years; cooling energy forms a substantial part of this and presents a significant opportunity for efficiency improvements. Air management performance describes how effectively conditioned air is employed to cool IT equipment in the data centre. By understanding this, inefficient operation can be identified, quantified and targeted. A set of metrics is described in the paper which characterise the air flows within the data centre and how well these serve the cooling demand. These may be determined by making a series of temperature measurements in various locations within the space. Measured performance can be compared with optimal / ideal performance and action taken, such as installation of air containment, to improve the effectiveness of cooling delivery. These measures usually have a quick payback and can enable the realisation of energy savings from fan speed reduction and an increase in cooling set points, which increases refrigeration efficiency and the availability of free cooling.