Hi,
I have encountered an issue with the baseline model for Data Center , based on LEED Comments we are using system 8 and for climate zone 5a the economizer shut off limit is 70F, the data center that i am working on is in Chicago where 7100 hrs in the year are below 70 F, which means that baseline system is using free cooling when our proposed system dont have an economizer, what can I do in that case? Like we are not able to even get minimum savings as baseline is getting free cooling.
Moses Chong
Mechanical EngineerWSP
2 thumbs up
August 8, 2023 - 12:55 pm
it will be the question for the mechanical engineers. Ask them why are they not cooling the building with air side economizer. Do they have water-side economizers? I've worked on couple data center projects that dont have air-side economizers yet still show savings. One of them has very efficient chillers and the other one has evaporative cooling. Besides the HVAC system, you can also get credit for using efficent electrical/server system that can be documented with this spreadsheet https://www.usgbc.org/resources/minimum-energy-performance-data-center-c.... This will be an exceptional calculation.
Good luck.