Energy Efficient Solutions for Your Data Center
Operating a data center is a very capital intensive endeavor. The costs can be so high that some companies are not fully taking advantage of new technologies due to budget constraints. However, there is a way to significantly reduce operating costs to free up budget dollars. Electrical costs take up roughly 12% of the budget of running a data center. The cooling infrastructure typically uses about 35 to 40% of these energy costs. Even for small to mid-size data centers, this can be tens of thousands dollars per month. The good news is that many data centers can reduce these costs by 30 to 40% by implementing relatively low cost solutions to improve cooling efficiency.
Top Cooling Efficiency Solutions for Data Centers
When it comes to cooling solutions for you data center, you have a number of options:
- Aisle containment: this system creates physical barriers around hot or cold aisles to prevent supply air from mixing with exhaust air. This accomplishes two things which greatly impacts efficiency. First, cooling unit set points can be increased. An industry rule of thumb is that each 1 degree of increase can save up to 4% in cooling cost. Secondly, higher temperature return air to cooling units actually increases the efficiency and capacity of the cooling.
- In-row cooling: placing the cooling units directly at the load provides supply air directly where it is needed. Hot exhaust air is also drawn directly in rather than drifting across room. This can be much more effective than cooling an entire room for a relatively small footprint of servers. They are available in three types: open-loop, closed-loop and self-contained solutions.
- Cooling accessories: nearly all data centers can yield exceptional efficiency gains by investing in some low cost but highly effective cooling accessories. The accessories which can provide the highest returns are blanking panels, foam strip seals and floor gap seals.
At Data Center Resources we are committed to providing state-of-the-art data center efficiency solutions. Our experienced Project Managers can assist you in implementing a plan to increase cooling efficiency in your data center. Contact us today to let us help you free up your budget dollars.
