How Economizers and Related Monitoring Tools Can Save You Money and Increase Reliability - by Paula Bernier

Views and Opinions on Green IT (Jan 11 2010) Power and Cooling

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   People used to think about data centers as locations in need of very tight control over temperature and humidity. While climate control is clearly still key, in the past five years data center operators have broadened the window of what’s acceptable in terms of temperatures and humidity. At the same time, we’ve seen the introduction of new devices to monitor and, in some cases, automatically adjust temperature, humidity and airflow.

    These devices, sometimes referred to as economizers, can save data center operators and their tenants money by increasing energy efficiency and, in some cases, allowing for the use of outside air for cooling, notes Equinix CTO Dave Pickut. Monitoring devices related to this concept also can allow for increased reliability, as pointed out in a recent TMCnet story http://it.tmcnet.com/channels/temperature-monitoring/articles/71961-temperature-monitoring-enables-always-always-running-networks.htm.

    There are types of economizer systems for data centers. Some exchange data center air with air outside. The use of these systems is limited to certain seasons in some geographies, such as in Washington, D.C., he says, but can be used most days in other areas, such as San Francisco. Some others use chilled water to bring down data center temperatures when needed.

    Pickut says the use of such devices can result in huge energy savings for data center operators, but also introduce an added level of complexity. That’s because, although these devices are automated, data center technicians must ensure they stay calibrated to the correct temperature and humidity ranges.

    While data center operators would seem to have a clear incentive to install economizers based simply on the savings they can realize, some states, like California and New Jersey, offer incentives for making this kind of investment. Pickut says Equinix put an economizer in a data center in California and received an incentive check of about $130,000 from the utility company in Silicon Valley.

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