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A green strategy for your data centre against a backdrop of uncertain future costs
 Chloride Technical Support Manager, Rob Tanzer, explains that Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems can cut energy, computing and environmental costs by a fifth.
Moore’s Law dictates that data centre computing power potentially doubles every 18 months. Both energy bills and – for the next few years at least – carbon footprints will follow directly related trends, as data centre energy density and computing power increases exponentially. But this is not the whole story. Blade servers, in increasing numbers, now draw current with a leading power factor, requiring energy intensive current correction, and data centres are consolidating, becoming more energy intensive than ever before.
The hitherto fairly standard Uninterruptible Power Supply system can now provide up front savings of 20 per cent on electricity bills and an economic strategy against rising energy costs and the costs of adapting power supplies to future computing loads.
In business terms, new UPS systems can provide an ongoing energy strategy, reducing energy costs by a fifth, and saving managers from having to adapt or over specify systems to cope with future lagging or leading loads. As with more conventional energy strategies applied by airlines and utilities businesses, the more costly power becomes, the greater the savings achieved.
Energy bills equate to carbon footprint. Dependence on fossil fuels for electricity will continue until at least 2015 and we know that energy costs are virtually certain to rise. Similarly, we know that processing power and energy consumption will also increase. It is now economically and environmentally imperative to cut energy bills. Chloride’s 80-NET MPR draws up to 20 per cent less current to supply the same load, owing to a unity input power factor. It will also support any lagging or leading load owing to a near-unity output power factor, at an efficiency of up to 98 per cent. Even given current low energy prices, this strategic investment pays for itself in three years or less: the business and environmental case seems irrefutable.
Until we move beyond silicon-based technologies and fossil fuels, the link between Moore’s Law on processing power and the environmental impact of corresponding power consumption will not be broken. Until then, there is no excuse for using inefficient technology, particularly when greener alternatives quickly pay for themselves. In data centres at least, an Uninterruptible Power Supply with an input power factor of less than 0.99 is not just environmentally irresponsible, but obsolete and unaffordable.
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