Professional Documents
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Business Drivers
- Key Challenges to Green Data centre's
Managing the potential trade off of between resilience with efficiency and green features Up front cost premiums (recoverable and unrecoverable) Difficulty in retrofitting existing plants and operations Physical and geographic constraints to adopting some technologies Limited change control of non-owned facilities Human factors, resistance to change, habits Impact/benefit measurement can prove difficult
Approach
A matrix of about 100 green design, operation qualities and performance quantities was created. The categories were broken down into:
Construction Materials
Distributed Energy
To capture data, facility engineers and plant operators in all three global regions were solicited for performance metrics, design qualities and operational details. Analysis was performed to establish a snap shot of the efficiency and energy footprint of the Data Centres The focus is on facilities only.
Note: IT production and operational practice varied greatly and it would not be possible to capture accurate uniform metrics on the green IT practices identified or quantify the efficiency of IT equipment in production.
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Data Centres
Why So Much Focus on Electricity?
A Data Centre is a big box that converts electricity into business process while producing waste heat For Data Centre operation, electricity has by far the largest direct environmental impact Heat is electricitys main byproduct after performing useful work It takes large amounts of energy to remove this heat from the facility Improved Data Centre electricity and heat management are the most significant ways to have a positive impact on the environment
Data Centre
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Data centre's
Why So Much Focus on Electricity?
Increasing electrical efficiency or reducing electricity consumption can have several positive effects:
Lower per server and overall DC TCO Lower mechanical and cooling overhead requirements (due to less heat) Surplus power may be repurposed for additional IT capacity
This graph shows Clients projected IT power demand growth by region over the next 15 years. Reducing consumption or getting more IT work out of each unit of electricity helps lower IT unit costs Power and space are the two most precious commodities in Data centre planning. Exhaustion of either may limit business expansion at a site The EPA estimates that over 1.5% of US electricity is now consumed by Data centre's. While energy cost continue to climb, that figure is expected to double by 2011
77.85 mW
12.23 mW
Measuring Efficiency
Efficiency Losses
In optimizing Data centre efficiency, the goal is maximizing the amount of IT work produced by the least amount of resources possible There are currently no universally accepted metrics for measuring Data centre facility efficiency. Few effective metrics to measure the efficiency/business utility of the IT devices running in the plant (flops? MIPS? CPU utilization? Business utility delivered?) Inefficiencies and natural loss occurs when energy travels great distances or changes from one form to another. The diagram below illustrates some expected loss points between the source of power generation and the IT equipment.
Measuring Efficiency
PUE / Power Usage Effectiveness
The PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) is a simple ratio gaining popularity for measuring facility efficiency. It compares total electrical power in to power delivered to IT equipment. The PUE reveals the overhead to get power to IT kit and cool the plant The formula for PUE is Total Facility Power in to the site divided by the amount power actually used by the IT Equipment Load measured off the PDUs or UPS A PUE of 1 would indicate that all of the power to the site is going to power IT kit. Current industry average PUE for a well designed Data centre is estimated to be about 2* where approximately half of the power for a facility is required for non-IT facility overhead The lowest practical PUE is about 1.5 1.6 for a very well designed data centre using grid electricity Some firms are beginning to use the PUE as a benchmark to quantify efficiency gains from changes in the plant The inverse of the PUE is called DCE (Data centre Efficiency) which is IT Equipment Load divided by Total Facility Load
PUE
- Explained Graphically
Power
Total Facility Power
Switchgear UPS Battery backup Etc.
IT Load
IT Equipment Power
Servers Storage Telco Equipment Etc.
Cooling
Chillers CRACs Etc.
Building Load
(Demand From the Grid)
PUE =
IT Equipment Power - Represents the total power
DCE =
IT Equipment Power
delivered to the compute equipment racks in the datacenter. The most likely measurement point would be at the output of the computer room power distribution units (PDUs) or UPS.
Total Facility Power
PUE
- Some Caveats When Analyzing the PUE
The PUE number can be effected by the amount of IT kit on the UPS relative the mechanical and electric plant size installed. Examples: A large site just built may only have a few servers running and consequently have a very high PUE due to the overhead of MEP systems A site that is fully populated with IT kit to the maximum capacity of the UPS will have a relatively lower PUE In non-dedicated Data centre facilities, it can be difficult to develop an accurate PUE number. Examples: Multi-tenant or Co-lo facilities where power and UPS infrastructure is shared or not metered separately for each tenant Multi-use facilities such as mixed office/trading/data centre facilities where segregation of data centre load relative to other uses may be inaccurate. Caution should be used when comparing facilities to ensure the PUE assumptions are as close as possible Notwithstanding the caveats above, the PUE is one of the better metrics we have today to compare facility efficiency between sites and industry peers
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Carbon Footprint
- Methodology
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions are widely viewed as being a significant contributor to global climate change The carbon footprint is a measure of how many equivalent units of CO2 the firms Data centre's operations indirectly expel into the atmosphere from the generation of energy consumed The Data centre estimated carbon footprint was determined by measuring the annual quantity of electricity consumed by the Data centre sites and multiplying that by the known or estimated carbon impact per kWh for that particular grid or region Only gross power to the site was used in the calculations. Power that was purchased from the utility as pre-offset from green sources was not adjusted in the calculations Other factors that contribute to the overall carbon footprint such as employee behavior, the consumption of materials or equipment and the movement of goods and people were not included in the analysis For our purposes, references to Carbon imply Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
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Carbon Footprint
- Impact
Clients estimated electricity carbon footprint for large Data centre facilities is 258 million pounds (117,093 metric tons) of CO2 annually*
This current annual CO2 footprint is roughly equivalent to:
The amount of carbon released by a Mini Cooper driven around circumference of the earth 21,513 times or to the moon 2408 times The annual carbon footprint of about 6,296 average US households or 18,883 average UK households. Just under three times the hull weight of the cruise ship Queen Mary 2*
This does not include the carbon footprint from other aspects of the facility, technology or people operations Also excluded from review are other greenhouse gasses (Methane, Nitrous Oxide) and other harmful emissions such as Sulphur Dioxide and Mercury emitted from the production of electricity Without making changes to the current efficiency profile of the Data centre's, these number have the potential to be 6 times larger by the end of 2015 based on projected power demands
It is worth noting that the local source of power has a significant effect on carbon footprint. Example: Japan utilizes larger percentages of nuclear and hydro power so the carbon footprint for the power consumer is relatively low compared to other regions which may use larger amounts of dirtier power generation such as coal
* Source: Cunard line Queen Mary 2 Fact Sheet 12
Less Green
Alternatively the carbon footprint of an inefficient plant can be somewhat offset if the source of electricity produces less carbon
More Green
* CO2 output rates from Department of Energy 2000 CO2 by Source Estimates Per kWh
Petroleum 1.969
Coal 2.095
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Carbon Footprint
- Offsets
Offsetting carbon is the is the act of mitigating ("offsetting") greenhouse gas emissions. A wellknown example is the planting of trees or investing in clean energy to compensate for the greenhouse gas emissions from personal air travel The market cost to offset the 258 million pounds of Carbon produced by the global Data centre sites would be approximately $2,341,893 annually*. This assumes a good quality carbon credit from the clean development mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol at $20 US/metric ton To equate this into trees, 258 million pounds of CO2 are accumulated annually by an old growth (50100 year old) forest that is 23 times the size of Manhattan (322,000 acres)** Planting trees is not an immediate solution. It takes 50-100 years for trees to accumulate (store/contain) a meaningful amount of carbon from the atmosphere and the question of what vegetation was displaced to plant new trees in the first comes up. One inherent problem with the global Carbon offsets market is that as a global market, offsets can be generated and applied in different regions. This means that by the rules of the Kyoto Protocol, you could offset carbon created in New York with offsets from the other side of the globe in Australia Offsetting carbon in the region it is created is optimal Critics of offsetting argue that using carbon offsets actually increases demand for polluting sources of power since overall power consumption is not being reduced
* Based on 8760 hours per year and $20 US Dollars/Metric Ton or ($0.0090719404880704 per pound) for a good quality carbon cre dit from the clean development mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol.
** Based on 800 pounds/acre/year accumulated by a mature New York State Forest (Source USDA Technical Report W0-59
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Carbon Footprint
- Offset Cost Estimates With Combinations of Efficiency and Source
Estimated Annual Cost to Offset - For Each 1 mW of IT Load
Note: Based on 8760 hours per year and $20 US Dollars/Metric Ton or ($0.0090719404880704 per pound) for a good quality carbon credit from the clean development mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol.
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While Most efficiency design element are also green, few features benefit all three categories simultaneously. Resiliency
High tier level with redundant systems
Water recovery systems? Fuel cells? Cogen power? LED lighting Variable speed fans Lights out in the DC Non-toxic construction materials Recycling policy EFFICIENT
Features that enhance the reliability of the Plant to reduce outage impact or downtime. Increasing reliance often decreases efficiency and greenness As tier level goes up, footprint increases and efficiency decreases Greenness and resilience rarely compliment each other directly
RESILIENT
Green
DC Design Sweet Spot
Features that are designed to reduce the environmental impact of the plant. Reduced carbon and environmental footprint Decrease energy and resource input requirements Recycled/renewable materials Carbon footprint is only one measure of environmental impact
Efficiency
Design features that increase the operational efficiency. Amount of output from the plant for a given resource input Most efficiency features benefit overall greenness Can be calculated several ways for different systems Our primary energy efficiency measure will be ratio of utility power in against UPS load delivered to equipment.
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Estimated efficiency gain for the above in NY DCs is between 3% - 10% annual electricity savings. 3% efficiency gain would result in: Annual North American electricity savings of $687K (22,900,000 kWh at $0.15 / kWh) Annual carbon footprint reduction of 7.3 million pounds CO2
*$1 million initiative to optimize cooling efficiency to industry best practice in all 5 NY DCs via use of blanking plates, cold locks, pillows and row end caps in all spaces. Work is expected to take 6 months with start date in October.
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Commissioning, CFD modeling and variable speed fans) Set targets for efficiency objectives and TCE reduction (based on short-term metrics and reporting) Extend evaluation of variable speed fan solutions, DC power, liquid cooling to the racks, air side cooling and other emerging technologies beyond the North America Region
Promote green change within IT through evaluation and adoption of identified green best practice considerations (e.g., optimizing software for greatest efficiency, optimizing operational elements such as utilization and power management features and hardware optimization)
Challenge vendors to consider efficiency and green when developing future products and incorporate efficiency into vendor evaluation criteria Publicly promote (through press releases and/or sponsorship) Firm green-consciousness activities as an essential component of Firm principles and industry best practice
Conclusion
Limited opportunities for some types of change in existing sites as they were constructed primarily for resilience with limited consideration towards efficiency Greatest efficiency gains will come from practicing green construction and incorporating efficient green considerations into future sites Multiple tier level offering where tier meets minimum business requirements and not carry the inefficient overhead of redundant systems or operate in a more green efficient out-of region location Make green and site selection a consideration in future design and site selection Significant opportunities exist for green change on the IT side by implementing green best practice considerations in the way technology is deployed and operated Is it more economical to offset carbon or retrofit the plant for efficiency? The answer would need to take obtainable change, power costs and cost of remediation into consideration on a case by case basis The main problem with offsetting is it does not reduce the demand for polluting sources of power since overall power consumption is not being reduced
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Appendix
- Details of Green Criteria
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Appendix
- Details of Green Criteria
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Appendix
- Details of Green Criteria
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Appendix
- Details of Green Criteria
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Appendix
- Details of Green Criteria
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Appendix
- Details of Green Criteria
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Appendix
- Annual Power Costs per 1mW of IT Load
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Appendix
- Tier Levels Explained
Tier I Non-redundant capacity components and single non-redundant path distribution paths serving the sites computer equipment Tier II Redundant capacity components and single non-redundant distribution paths serving the sites computer equipment.
Source: Uptime Institute White Paper Tier Classifications Define Site Infrastructure Performance
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Appendix
- Tier Levels Explained
Tier III A concurrently maintainable data centre has redundant capacity components and multiple distribution paths serving the sites computer equipment. Generally, only one distribution path serves the computer equipment at a time Tier IV A fault tolerant data centre has redundant capacity systems and multiple distribution paths simultaneously serving the sites computer equipment. All IT equipment is dual powered and installed properly to be compatible with the topology of the Sites architecture.
Source: Uptime Institute White Paper Tier Classifications Define Site Infrastructure Performance
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