Fortune Data Centers' new green data center in Silicon Valley.
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(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Data center operator Fortune Data Centers (www.fortunedatacenters.com) announced on Tuesday it has commenced operations of a new energy-efficient, "green" data center in Silicon Valley.
The recently completed initial phase provides 7.86MW of IT critical load over two data rooms consisting of 43,000 fully powered and usable square feet of IT floor space in a 78,000 square foot building.
When fully complete, Fortune San Jose will consist of over 140,000 square feet in three buildings on a 9.26-acre campus.
Located at 2001 Fortune Drive in San Jose, the new facility offers high energy efficiency, having achieved a Power Usage Effectiveness of 1.37 during independent testing through Level 5 Commissioning Process.
PUE is a standard developed by The Green Grid (www.thegreengrid.org) that is determined by dividing the total facility power by the IT equipment power. The lower the resulting ratio, the more efficient the data center.
According to Fortune, the company's PUE of 1.37 at full load is a far better ratio than the industry average data center PUE of 2.0, and better than the EPA's 2011 target PUE of 1.45 for enterprise-class data centers.
The company estimates that moving IT load from a legacy data center to Fortune's facility would result in reduced annual electrical consumption of 40 million kWh, enough to fully power 3,800 average US homes and save tenants over $4 million per year in energy costs.
In environmental terms, removing 40 million Kilowatt-hours from the U.S. grid reduces CO2 emissions by approximately 27,000 tons annually.
"We are thrilled to bring this facility online," says John Sheputis, CEO of Fortune Data Centers. "To be able to fund, construct, commission, and lease a project of this size in this economic climate is a true indication of the underlying strength of local data center market. I consider the Phase I facility to be among the largest, most powerful, and most energy-efficient data centers ever to be developed in Silicon Valley."
Instead of using raised floors to deliver cold air to servers, Fortune will supply cold air from an overhead plenum with insulated ducts for hot air return.
By using the natural density of cold air and the buoyancy of hot air, the data center will be able to significantly reduce the power it requires for air distribution. Also, mounting cabinets directly on the floor reduces installation cost, increases seismic stability, and removes weight constraints.
The data center also features the use of ambient cooling to supplement and optimize chilling capacity by installing five high efficiency cooling towers to supply 3,500 tons of cooling capacity. This installation will significantly increase the central chilling plant efficiency.
Fortune also uses contained hot and cold aisles in the data rooms, eliminating the mixing of hot and cold air to create more effective air pressure control, decrease waste, and further reduce needed fan horsepower.
The company also worked with DPR Construction, Rosendin Electric, Therma, and Dowler Gruman Architects to adhere to sustainable construction and operational methods, as detailed in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Program of the US Green Building Council.
The company is poised to become the first operational data center in California to achieve the LEED Gold certification, having submitted all required documentation for the facility to achieve a Gold rating under the LEED Certification for Commercial Interiors, Major Renovation.
The data center also successfully prevented about 96 percent of construction waste from being sent to a landfill by recycling or reusing about 1,137 tons of material on site, while all paints, adhesives, sealants, and coatings were low volatile organic compound, says DPR Construction.
Other key environmental features include a Building Management System with extensive power and environmental metering, the use of non-CFC based refrigerants and LEED compliant cleaning materials, and lighting is motion sensor controlled.
The facility was built with blade servers in mind, and will support a minimum energy density of 185 watts per square foot, making it adequate for the high density needs of cloud computing.
Another data center operator that recently announced the details of its facility's energy efficiency design is Advanced Data Centers.
The company's McClellan Park data center in Sacramento has allowed the company to save 36 percent on carbon emissions compared to the average data center.
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