Data centers are one of the most important assets that support today’s global networked economy. These facilities are where computers and servers route, manage, store, and process the data and information on which businesses and consumers depend. To keep business-critical applications and temperature-sensitive electronic equipment operating at peak performance 24 hours a day, seven days a week, data centers require reliable power conditioning and, cooling systems. All of this requires electricity – lots of it.
Rising energy consumption by data centers, coupled with rising energy costs, has heightened the need for strategies that can reduce costs, manage capacity while empowering growth, and promote energy responsibility. In the United States alone, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has estimated that data centers consumed about 61 billion kilowatt-hours in 2006, for a total electricity cost of about $4.5 billion. That’s double the electricity that was consumed by this sector in 2000. The EPA projects that energy consumption by U.S.-based data centers and servers could nearly double again in another five years (by 2011) to more than 100 billion kilowatt-hours, representing an annual cost of at least $7.4 billion.
Emerson and its Emerson Network Power business are at the forefront of U.S. and global efforts to create more energy efficient data centers that meet business needs for high reliability and flexibility. Emerson Network Power’s industry-leading uninterruptible power supply, precision cooling, infrastructure management, and monitoring products, coupled with its global industry expertise and services, enable data centers to improve their energy efficiency and ensure high availability for business-critical applications at the lowest total cost of ownership.
Today’s data centers – regardless of the size of the business they support – are in a state of constant change. New equipment is being installed to replace old equipment almost daily. The trend toward smaller but increasingly powerful servers and computer hardware has led to extremely high heat density loads, creating hot spots that require more advanced, precise cooling solutions.
Emerson is meeting this customer need with innovative new products. For small- and medium-sized data centers that face unpredictable changes in their business, Emerson has developed the Liebert NX UPS with Softscale™ technology that can be sized to current requirements and then easily scaled with a simple software key as needs change. The 97 percent efficiency rating of the Liebert NX with Softscale exceeds the 95 percent “state-of-the-art” designation published by the EPA in its August 2007 data center energy efficiency report to Congress.
To answer the need for precision cooling closer to the source of the heat, Emerson has developed products such as the Liebert XD family of solutions, a flexible, refrigerant-based cooling system approach that requires 15 percent to 50 percent less chiller plant capacity and floor space, plus potential energy savings of up to 40 percent. Also, Emerson’s new Liebert Challenger ITR can be easily positioned next to equipment racks to deliver focused cooling within the rack row.
As an industry leader, Emerson shares best practices to promote energy efficiency in data center design and management. Emerson Network Power has released Energy Logic, a vendor-neutral roadmap for optimizing data center energy efficiency. Based on research and modeling, Energy Logic provides IT and facilities managers with a step-by-step approach to making decisions about optimizing energy use and minimizing critical resource constraints — power, cooling, and space — without compromising availability or flexibility.
Emerson Network Power is also working closely with its data center customers and industry organizations such as The Green Grid on an EPA study designed to gather real-world energy use data to help define a range of criteria for a future ENERGY STAR™ Data Center Infrastructure Rating. When completed, the rating will help data center operators assess the energy performance of their building’s infrastructure assets and compare their performance to their peers across the United States. Customers can also engage Emerson Network Power to conduct a data center assessment to determine the effectiveness and any vulnerabilities in their facility’s power and cooling capacities and strategies.
Related Information:
Emerson Introduces New Approach to Reducing Energy Consumption in Telecommunications Networks (September 15, 2008 press release)