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Doug Garday
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Green Data Centers, Recycle Your Energy

Posted by Doug Garday on Jan 18, 2008 5:12:30 PM

Another twist to energy conservation is energy reuse. It is possible to use the waste heat generated in a data center for non data center heating needs. This can be thought of as Energy Recycling, a method of reducing the impact of data centers on the environment. A great opportunity to enable a data center for energy reuse is at their conception as a goal during the design. With the growing number of data centers being built, now is the time to integrate energy saving and reuse methods. Data centers located in climates with a need for heating, will hopefully recover and reuse a majority of their operating energy for heating non data center areas and adjacent buildings in the future. Since data centers operate at a relatively constant energy demand, they offer a stable and near constant source of heat. The colder the environment, the more financially attractive it can be to install the equipment needed to recover and transfer the heat from the data center to adjoining areas or even neighboring buildings. Imagine data centers located in downtown areas of the city sending off their heat energy and heating other buildings as if they were a utility provider!

 

Read Data Center Heat Recovery Helps Intel Create Green Facility to see more about what we are doing to reclaim and recycle energy.

Tags: data_center_cooling, data_center_power, datacenter, green_data_centers


Add a comment Leave a comment on this blog post.
Feb 17, 2008 10:38 PM Guest Hilorey  says:

......crickets......crickets.....
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Feb 19, 2008 1:19 PM Doug Garday Doug Garday    says in response to Hilorey:

Dear Hilorey

 

I'd delete your comment, but its the only one I got so far. This subject must be about as exciting as watching corn grow.

 

BTW - Is your name Hilorey or Hillary?
Reply
Feb 23, 2008 11:45 PM Guest Ralph Sieja  says:

I am attempting to have some dialogue with Doug Garday regarding his white paper titled "Air-Cooled High Performance Data Centers: Case Studies and Best Methods". Having been in the access flooring industry for over 25 years and now the data center cooling industry via Liebert, I am interested in discussing the concept of additional cooling. In particular, the use of high density 55% open area access floor grating panels in the cold aisles. I see that Doug seems to endorse the concept in Case #4 of the white paper. I look forward to hearing from Doug. Thank you.
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Feb 26, 2008 12:35 PM Doug Garday Doug Garday    says in response to Ralph Sieja:

Hi Ralph

 

I'd be happy to discuss the 'air-cooled..." whitepaper with you. I do endorse using different percentage of free-area floor diffusers in data centers based upon different factors such and RMF height and amount of airflow needed for the IT thermal load. I've noticed from airflow modeling DCs, there is a balancing act to select the optimum RMF parameters to achieve what we feel is the best fit for that type of DC.

 

Doug
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Jan 26, 2009 7:04 PM Guest Ralph  says in response to Doug Garday:

Doug,

I understand what you are saying. The analogy is like a garden hose. The more holes you drill in it, the lower the pressure is at the end. You mention different percentages of air flow. A blend so to speak. The access floor industry has typically provided 25% free area perforated panels. In the lab, they produce 600 cfm. Today, 55% free area grating panels are also available. In the lab, they produce 1,200-1,300 cfm. Is this blend of 600 cfm and 1200 cfm preferable? Or, do you see a need for air flows between these ranges? ie. something more specific. I ask this because I've been introduced to a 55% open area grating panel that comes with an optional damper. The damper can be adjusted to provide 300, 600, 900 cfm and when totally removed, 1200 cfm. In essence, the damper restricts air flow in increments of 25%. This seems to provide more flexibility to balance the system. Additionally, it provides built in additional air flow capacity should loads increase. Your thoughts? Thanks
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Oct 20, 2008 2:06 PM chow chow    says in response to Doug Garday:

Hi Doug

I’m pretty interested in the idea of recycling heat. We are building a large scale data center facility in Singapore. I remember reading an article about making use of human body heat from the passenger travelling thru train station to benefits office usage sometime ago; and I’m sure Data Center can produced more “heat” than human body.

As we do not have winter here and our climate is quite constant throughout the year. I was thinking of capturing this large amount of heat generated by the racks and convert it into usable energy for other electrical application. Possible?

Guess you might have done some research on this area. Care to share some?

 

Thank you
Reply
Oct 7, 2008 8:38 PM chow chow    says:

Hi Doug

I’m pretty interested in the idea of recycling heat. We are building a large scale data center facility in Singapore. I remember reading an article about making use of human body heat from the passenger travelling thru train station to benefits office usage sometime ago; and I’m sure Data Center can produced more “heat” than human body.

As we do not have winter here and our climate is quite constant throughout the year. I was thinking of capturing this large amount of heat generated by the racks and convert it into usable energy for other electrical application. Possible?

Guess you might have done some research on this area. Care to share some?

 

Thank you
Reply
Oct 12, 2008 10:03 AM Guest busby seo test  says in response to Ralph Sieja:

It is really amazing to learn that recycling is very important. There are so many ways to do it.
Reply

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