Today’s enterprises are greatly dependent on IT. This reliance, together with technological advancements, changing business and data management models, ever-increasing data volumes, and the rising cost of downtime are driving many enterprises to build new data centers. Not surprisingly, to be more socially and environmentally responsible and in anticipation of future green DC regulations, many are going green for their new facilities.

Another motivation: green DCs offer a higher level of energy efficiency, which has now become even more important in the light of high energy costs. The move towards green DCs is especially strong in the Asia Pacific, which is projected to be the fastest growing segment of the global green DC market that is estimated to reach a value of almost US$182 billion by 2026.

First things first
So what should go into a green DC? The conservation of natural resources and enhanced energy efficiency are the fundamental objectives of sustainable development and green building policies. From a design perspective, as many sub-systems as possible in a DC should be modular. Besides using lower amounts of fewer types of materials, modularity enables quick adaptation to changes, speeds up maintenance and replacement work, and allows fuss-free future expansion. Construction-wise, green DCs should be built using recycled/recyclable construction materials where practical and use natural cooling and renewable energies where these are available.

In the grey space of a DC, such assets as dry-type resin transformers, capacitor banks and high-efficiency UPS systems can make significant contributions to sustainable development on account of the extensive electricity savings they bring. Power losses connected with energy conversion and UPS systems currently represent around 10% of the total energy consumption of a DC, so the optimized energy efficiency from the deployment of resin transformers, capacitor banks and high-efficiency UPS systems help to ensure the power demand is as close as possible to the actual requirements and reduce power losses. Such assets also give off less heat, which reduces the need for cooling.

Cooling accounts up to 50% of a DC’s total energy costs. Efficient airflow management, especially in white space, is essential to keeping cooling cost manageable. Here, hot and cold aisles, plates on the bottom and top of racks, perforated rack cabinet doors, airflow baffles and other measures can help keep cold and hot air separate and minimize air leakage. Such effective cooling strategies do more than help DC operators save on cooling – they also increase the useful life of servers and other assets.

Measure, analyze, act
Measuring energy use is basic to making the right decisions in terms of sustainable development. Precise and regular measurements, as well as analysis of such data, are key to efficient control over consumption and energy quality. By integrating sensors with DCIM and BCM systems through intelligent PDUs that have remote power management capability, smart racks and controllers, DC operators can obtain insights for informing corrective actions that help shrink the carbon footprint and the power bill.

Examples of such actions are: powering down idle or underperforming assets, preventing server malfunction, maintaining optimal operating temperature for assets, and identifying when the facility is overcooled or undercooled. Ultimately, such actions lead to optimal energy usage, enhanced asset performance, and continual savings.

Maximize the vertical
Another way to lower energy consumption and work toward a greener DC is to make full use of the vertical space in facilities instead of adding racks and having to cool them. This can be done by simply housekeeping the space within each rack, creating more space within racks by repositioning network switches, patch panels, etc. outside the racks, and using taller racks.

Be continually employing these methods to lower energy usage in their facilities, DC operators can, over time, significantly cut the amount they spend and contribute to long-term sustainability. Legrand, Raritan and its sister companies offer a suite of hardware and software solutions that can help enterprises achieve a high level of energy efficiency. These solutions include hot and cold aisles, rack cabinets, busways and cabling, network-connected PDUs, intelligent rack controllers, sensors, and DC energy management and power monitoring software.