EPA Sends Data Center Power Study to Congress

BDPrime writes "We've all been hearing ad nauseum about power and cooling issues in the data center. Now the EPA has issued a final report to Congress detailing the problem and what might be done to fix it. Most likely what will happen is the EPA will add servers and data centers into its Energy Star program. If you don't feel like reading the entire 133-page report, the 14-page executive summary is a little easier to get through."

wow

[thatskinnyguy]

n 2006, U.S. data centers consumed an estimated 61 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy, which accounted for about 1.5% of the total electricity consumed in the U.S. that year.

Is that it? Seems like small potatoes to me.

great news for Sun

[toby]

...whose servers are among [sun.com] the most power-efficient [sun.com] available, and even more so with Niagara 2. [sun.com]

Disclaimer: I own a tiny bit of Sun stock. (But I bought it because I believe in them, not vice versa!)

Re:wow

[Bacon Bits]

It's an estimated 11,000,000 servers in everything from 2 server closets to thousand server enterprise centers. These 11 million systems consume more power than all the TV sets in the US combined, and there are more TV sets in the US today than people.

Or lets do it this way. Hoover Dam at peak output produces 2 Gigawatts of power per hour. 11 million servers consume 61 billion KW hours annually. It takes Hoover Dam 30,000 hours (about 3.5 years) to produce that much power. So you need four Hoover Dams just to power all the data centers in the US.

Re:wow

[miller60]

Actually, dams are serving as magnets for data center development, since hydro power is cheaper than other sources and provides the public relations advantage of being "greener" than coal or nuke power. That's why more than 2 million square feet of data center space [datacenterknowledge.com] is being planned in and around Quincy, Washington, a farm town of 5,000. Meanwhile, in northern NY state, HSBC is locating a $1 billion data center project [datacenterknowledge.com] in Cambria (another farm town of 5,000), where it will use hydro power from the Niagara river.

Re:Virtualization?

[necro81]

Table ES-1 in the executive summary suggests server consolidation at various levels (moderate, aggressive, etc.). Server consolidation can be done in a number of ways, with virtualization being one of the most effective and popular.

Units -arghhhh!

[IvyKing]

Or lets do it this way. Hoover Dam at peak output produces 2 Gigawatts of power per hour.

What you meant to say is "Hoover Dam at peak output produces 2 Gigawatts." What does make more sense is saying 48 million KWH per day or a bit over 17 billion KWH per year - assuming that there is enough water behind the dam to allow for continuous peak output, which is certainly not the case this year.

Re:Simple Solution

[fm6]

If a few large datacenters declared their fees as a small $$ value for each unit of space, and additionally a few dollars, per watt of power consumption, you'd see the problem naturally fix itself, through normal economic forces

How on earth do you track individual power consumption? Putting a meter on each system is hardly practical. I suppose you get away with one on each rack, but many customers (the vast majority in the one data center I worked in) don't rent whole racks.

Re:Simple Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I'm no expert, but I happen to work for the US Govt, and I happen to be aware of two major data centers we're standing up.

I can tell you the above statement "They seemingly all charge a hell of a lot for physical space, and then almost completely ignore power requirements." is completely out of line with what we pay for our use of Tier 5 data centers.

The two data centers we use (http://www.data393.com/ in Denver, http://www.heraklesdata.com/ [heraklesdata.com] in Sacramento) charge us a pretty penny for power usage.

Hell we pay THOUSANDS of dollars to get them to RUN power, then we pay THOUSANDS more for the juice. (And this is the site that uses overhead rails with modular power.)

Believe me... As an IT employee of the Feds, I'm WELL aware of the power costs, and I'm constantly trying to penny pinch to save YOU and ME money. I may have the infamy of working for the "MAN", but I do try and make the best decisions with the money I spend.

(On the flip side, I'm posting on slashdot while you're paying my salary... I guess I'll have to work an extra few minutes today to avoid the hypocrite mod.)

Re:Virtualization?

[1sockchuck]

The report addresses virtualization only indirectly when it refers to electric utilities offering incentive programs. PG&E offers financial incentives to encourage the use of virtualization in data center consolidations [datacenterknowledge.com], with qualifying customers able to earn a rebate of up to $4 million per project site. Other utilities are looking at adapting similar incentives based on virtualization.

I'm not sure EPA is the right party to be advocating virtualization. The EnergyStar ratings and utility-level programs are more up their alley.

Higher voltage

[Skapare]

I have found that stock switching power supplies as found in common computers are slightly more efficient when powered with 240 volts rather than 120 volts. Some more so and some less so. And virtually all of them can be changed over to 240 volts (having the correct 2-pole switching).

And by using 240 volts instead of 120 volts, you can run twice as many computers on the same power loss in the building wiring (same current, same size wire, same power loss due to heat, serving twice the load).

Direct DC fed power systems may or may not provide realistic savings. DC introduces new electrical safety challenges and costs (electrical arcs inside switches, circuit breakers, and fuses, cannot be cut off by AC's zero voltage crossing that DC does not have). This requires lower voltages for equivalent interruption safety. But if power supplies end up losing less power than the building wiring at the higher current, then DC may be the better choice.

We will need more in-depth study to determine if DC will save power or not at a given installation (it may at some and not at others). But for most installations, going from 120 volts up to 208 or 240 volts (depending in which is available) is as simple as rewiring the system (using 2-pole breakers ... requiring double size power panels) and verifying the computer power supplies are ready for the higher voltage.

208 volts is the likely line-to-line voltage in data centers powered by 3-phase (208Y/120) power in North America. Future data centers could be designed for a 416Y/240 volt power system which can also be used to power fluorescent lighting.

Re:Get rid of the AC DC power supplys and replace.

[Chris Snook]

Yes, but how much less heat? DC rectifiers waste heat too. 3-phase power supplies on blade chassis are considerably more efficient than typical 1-phase pizza box power supplies. The blade system has an efficient entry cost an order of magnitude more than the pizza box, and 3 orders of magnitude less than the DC data center, but is closer to the DC data center in AC conversion efficiency. This makes it a very good compromise for the vast majority of enterprises that do not buy their data centers by the acre.

Don't get me wrong, I think DC is great, but until the market grows a lot more, it won't really be cost-efficient for the masses.