In the May 2015 issue of Electronics Cooling magazine. I wrote an article that addresses the common question of, “At what temperature should I run my data center to optimize energy efficiency?” While there is no one-size-fits-all answer. This article provides a useful methodology to answer that question for your business.

Abstract:

Cooling and thermal management are critical to data center reliability. Many organizations see cooling as a differentiating factor in the lifecycle cost of their data center. Recent industry guidelines [1] for data center cooling have suggested energy savings in air-cooled data centers by increasing the temperature of the cooling air. This increase enables two trends: reduced refrigeration power at higher refrigeration system evaporator temperatures and an increased number of hours available for using free-cooling. Free-cooling uses ambient air to provide cooling to the data center and reduce or eliminate the need for mechanical refrigeration. However, often overlooked is the significant power used in data centers for moving the cooling air. This article will use a simple thermodynamic and heat transfer analysis to highlight how trade-offs in Information Technology (IT) system power, computer room air conditioner (CRAC) fan power, and refrigeration power must be balanced to optimally operate the data center. Prior studies [2, 3, 4] have illustrated how simple models can be very effective at elucidating meaningful results

The magazine can be downloaded here: Electronics Cooling

The online version of the article can be accessed here: Calculation Corner