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Visual Guide to Energy in the U.S.
June 23rd, 2009 : Rich Miller
Which states offer the highest mix of renewable energy from their utilities? This is an issue of growing importance in data center site selection. NPR has created a tool offering a visual guide to renewable energy in the United States, allowing you to quickly scan which states offer the most abundant supply of hydroelectric power or wind generation. Visualizing the Grid provides five overlays of a map of the U.S., showing high-power transmission lines, the location and capacity of power plants, a state-by-state breakdown of the sources of power, and the best locations for solar power and wind power.
The “Sources of Power” map allows you to select a power source - coal, nuclear, gas, hydro or oil - and provides a color-coded heat map for each source. This allows you to quickly filter out hydroelectric power and learn that Idaho generates 79 percent of its power from hydro, followed by Washington State (71 percent) and Oregon (62 percent). If you’re contemplating data center site selection and haven’t already done this type of research, you’ll definitely find Visualizing the Grid useful.
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Solar Power at Data Center Scale
June 16th, 2009 : Rich Miller
Solar power has finally reached data center scale. Phoenix IT infrastructure provider i/o Data Centers is installing a huge array of solar panels on the 11-acre roof of its new Phoenix ONE data center. The company says the photovoltaic panels will generate up to 4.5 megawatts of power to supplement the energy needs of the massive facility.The installation planned for Phoenix ONE will dwarf all previous efforts to integrate solar power into a working data center. Its output will be nearly three times the 1.6 megawatts produced by the solar panels covering the roof of the Googleplex.
The first phase of 5,000 solar panels in Phoenix is scheduled to be operational in January, and will generate 500 kilowatt-peak (kWp), the company says. The array will be expanded in four additional phases during 2010 to reach a total capacity of 4.5 megawatts-peak.
That’s just a fraction of the 80 megawatts of power capacity that the 538,000 square foot Phoenix ONE data center will need upon completion. The solar power is also expensive, costing about 18 cents per kilowatt hour to generate in a market where grid power is 7 cents.
Time-Shifted Cooling
But Phoenix ONE plan capitalizes on another wrinkle in power pricing: the differential between the daytime and overnight rates. The solar plant will be combined with an on-site thermal storage facility to create a time-shifted energy efficiency system.i/o Data Centers will run its chillers at night when power is cheap, and then tap the thermal storage “battery” to provide much of the facility’s cooling during the day, reducing its power usage when electricity is most expensive. The solar power panels will further lower Phoenix ONE’s reliance on utility power during peak hours.
“If we can generate 3 megawatts during the day, combined with our thermal storage, we can shave our power costs by about 50 percent,” said George Slessman, the CEO of i/o Data Centers. “Anything I can do to move my power consumption to off-peak hours is going to save a lot of money. Solar is the renewable approach that works best during peak daytime power pricing.”
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Are You Running Out of Power or Cooling?
June 15th, 2009 : Kevin NormandeauHow do you extend the value of what you have and plan for what you need? Data centers are packing in more power-hungry, heat generating IT systems than ever, and many power and cooling systems are reaching their limits. Older power protection, power distribution and HVAC systems could be bottlenecks to needed expansion. Since these support systems represent 40 percent of the cost of IT equipment, a wholesale upgrade is generally not an option. So, what is the best way to augment and extend existing capacity within the constraints of tight budgets and limited support staff? How can you establish a power and cooling infrastructure that is ready for growth but not over-provisioned for an uncertain future?
This Eaton white paper offers strategies that enable IT managers to:
- Plan a more efficient and adaptable power and cooling infrastructure, starting with an audit of the present state and evaluation of alternative approaches and technologies.
- Monitor and measure power and cooling systems, so they can be managed more effectively and economically.
- Optimize the existing cooling system through mechanical and room layout changes, using relatively inexpensive devices to redirect and concentrate available airflow.
- Augment UPS and power distribution systems by using modular approaches and the latest, high efficiency products.
With simple changes in infrastructure and practices, any data center can extend the value of available backup power and cooling systems—delaying the point where those systems would have to be upgraded to match data center expansion. Click here to download this white paper on data center power and cooling strategies.
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Five Key Attributes of Quality Power
June 8th, 2009 : Kevin NormandeauModern power supply units (PSUs) are more robust than ever, and designed to perform under local electric utility conditions around the world. They operate normally over a wide range of input voltages and frequencies. They have internal energy stores to ride through brief power interruptions. Most ave input power factor correction circuitry and operate at a power factor close to unity, and they handle a broad range of transient power disturbances, as defined by industry standards.
In spite of their robust design, PSUs need protection from power quality problems generated by the electric utility or arising within the facility. To operate properly, IT equipment needs a consistent source of conditioned power that meets industry specifications. Providing that consistent, conditioned power is the job of an uninterruptible power system (UPS).
This Eaton white paper looks at five key attributes or requirements of power quality—as the PSU sees it—and the implications of each for UPS design and selection. Click here to read this white paper.
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HP Has First Energy Star Servers
June 4th, 2009 : Rich Miller
The HP DL380 is one of the first servers to earn the EnergyStar rating.
HP has become the first company to have its servers earn the Energy Star Seal. The EPA launched the Energy Star for Enterprise Servers program on May 15 after two years of development. The program just published its first list of servers that qualified for Energy star as of June 1, which features four HP Proliant servers, including the DL360 G6 1U model and three configurations of the 2U DL360 G6.
The Energy Star effort hopes to offer buyers an independent “apples to apples” method for comparing the energy efficiency of servers from major vendor. For companies with large server farms, energy efficiency improvements at the server level can add up to large gains across a data center, as noted this week by Ken Brill of The Uptime Institue in his column for Forbes.
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UK Firm Plans Solar Data Center
June 2nd, 2009 : Rich MillerA UK firm is building a new data center that will use a combination of solar power and advanced server energy management, an approach that could help smaller data centers consider solar as a power source. WorldBackups.net is building a 2,600 square foot facility at a former BT telecom exchange in North Wiltshire, which it plans to bring online in the second quarter of 2010.Data center operators are eager to use renewable energy to meet corporate social responsibility pledges, but solar and wind power have been lightly adopted thus far. Solar is a particular challenge due to cost and capacity issues, which limit the scope of any data center using photovoltaic solar power as its primary source of electricity.
WorldBackups.net plans to use a solar power array to power the data center, while reducing its power requirements by switching off servers when they’re not busy. The company says it is developing an advanced application to manage server resources that can power servers off and on as needed, firing up necessary network space within one minute.
The power management is the key step in making renewable energy a viable option, according to Roland Scott, managing director of WorldBackups. “We can only use solar because we will have the ability to shut down a lot of our infrastructure when it’s not needed,” said Scott. “We will have to buy power during the night, and that will come from companies that generate their power from renewable sources – solar and wind.”
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AMD Launches ‘Istanbul’ Processor
June 1st, 2009 : Rich Miller
AMD today launched its six-core Istanbul processor, touting its energy efficiency and versatility. For data center operators using AMD servers, the good news is that the six-core Istanbul offers a 34 percent performance boost with the same power usage as AMD’s quad-core Opteron chips.
“With every generation, we get more performance out of the same thermal envelope,” said Leslie Sobon, VP for product marketing at AMD. “That’s a key criteria for us.”
“What we heard from our customers was that they want increased performance per watt and more power efficiency,” added Dirk Meyer, President and CEO of AMD. “We actually exceeded all of our internal expectations. (Istanbul’s) performance per watt is stunning.”
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Integrated Approach to Energy Management
May 6th, 2009 : Kevin NormandeauIn the quest to more effectively manage the IT infrastructure, many organizations are stymied by a disconnect between IT and Facilities. The two groups rarely collaborate and typically report into different parts of the organization. Apart, neither group can optimize energy consumption and system availability across the big picture. The data center could be consuming more energy than necessary. Essential IT applications could be at risk from infrastructure weaknesses. Inefficiencies could force premature construction of additional power and cooling infrastructure.
If IT and Facilities could work collaboratively, organizations can operate more efficiently and effectively while still meeting their business objectives. This white paper from Eaton describes how a joint monitoring and management solution links IT assets, the data center infrastructure and Facilities assets into a holistic perspective aligned with business processes.
Click here for a copy of this Eaton white paper (free to registered members).
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