(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Validating the effectiveness of its energy efficiency initiatives, wholesale data center provider Digital Realty Trust (www.digitalrealtytrust.com) has saved an estimated 10,000 kW annually (worth about $6 to 10 million) at its Bay Area facilities, according to the results of an energy efficiency audit of its San Francisco and Silicon Valley properties.
According to Digital Realty Trust’s Friday announcement, its Bay Area “Turn-Key Datacenters” have produced significant cost savings for customers across, and reported energy efficiency gains, achieving an average Power Usage Effectiveness rating of 1.6 at only 53 percent utilization.
Developed by The Green Grid (www.thegreengrid.org), a global consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems, PUE measures how efficiently a computer data center uses its power. Represented as a ratio between the total facility power and the power used to run IT and supporting systems, the lower the PUE level, the more energy efficient the data center. The industry average is typically between 2.0 and 2.2.
Contributing to Digital Realty Trust’s average PUE of 1.6 is a wide range of energy efficiency technologies and best practices such as variable frequency drives on fans, pumps and chillers, outside air economization with differential enthalpy control, higher operating temperatures within the data centers, LEED Platinum buildings, and PowerVu monitoring software, as well as hot and cold aisle containment.
“This is industry-leading energy efficiency for such a large IT load over so many properties, especially when you take into account that customers are only at 53 percent utilization,” Digital Realty Trust chief technology officer Jim Smith said in a statement. “The industry average for data center PUE is in the 2.5 range. A PUE of 1.6 is outstanding, and is a tribute to the effectiveness of our energy efficiency and sustainability program. Compared to industry averages, these Turn-Key Datacenters are saving an estimated 10,000 kW a year in electricity usage, which translates into millions of dollars of estimated cost savings for our customers annually.”
Earlier this week, data center and IT solutions provider Consonus (www.consonus.com) announced that the latest PUE score for its 15-year-old West Data Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, was an impressive 1.35, reflecting energy efficiency from recent renovations.
It is, however, worth noting that comparing PUEs between data centers can be misleading since PUE is a relational metric that doesn’t measure, for example, the amount of productive work a data center accomplishes, or its level of availability – which, for instance, can require more power in idle mode.
Nevertheless, the fact that many data center operators are pointing out their low PUE scores is seen by many in the industry as a positive development.
