Metering For Increased Energy Efficiency In High Performance Computing Data Centers
An intelligently integrated metering infrastructure can play a vi-tal role in the process of increasing energy efficiency in high-performance computing facilities.
Because data centers and other high-performance computing (HPC) facilities can use up to 50 times the electricity of equivalent-size office buildings, they are prime candidates for energy-efficient design and retrofit measures to slash energy consumption and operating costs. By definition, mission critical data center loads require extremely high availability, and for that reason pose rigorous challenges in defining and implementing effective mitigation strategies to not only protect the computer equipment itself, but also factor in the facility’s power infrastructure, among other considerations, to ensure uninterrupted facility uptime.
The fact that most utilities only log outages that last longer than 1 to 5 minutes tends to ignore the many momentary interruptions that every facility experiences, and which annually result in millions of dollars in lost productivity. Given the potential cost ramifications if left uncorrected, it is easy to see how understanding what power quality (PQ) problems are, how to find them, and how to solve them will only increase in importance for both facilities and utility personnel. According to a 2001 study by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), power quality disturbances manifest themselves in various forms, typically according to the following relative percentages: