Minimising Data Centre Total Cost of Ownership Through Energy Efficiency Analysi

Minimising Data Centre Total Cost of Ownership Through Energy Efficiency Analysis

Session 11 Paper 1, CIBSE ASHRAE Technical Symposium, Imperial College, London, UK
18th and 19th April 2012

Data centres carry significant investment and operating costs, including energy costs. The industry grows with our increasing demand for IT services and operators face increasing pressure to reduce their environmental impact and deliver competitively priced services to support users. However, many existing data centres were designed without a ‘green’ design brief; priorities were focussed around infrastructure redundancy. There are significant opportunities to implement modifications to design and operation and reduce operating costs, particularly to cooling systems. These include managing data hall air, operating at higher temperatures, using free cooling and optimising for part load operation. By analysing where energy is used in the facility, improvements can be targeted, most of which have short payback periods. This results in massive reductions in energy (and sometimes capital) costs, whilst still delivering a reliable service.