I have a project that is just starting and we have a somewhat unique situation. The building is a 2-story office building and the computers being used within the building are server grade machines which consume nearly 900 watts of energy each (typical consumption - not peak consumption)! I have prepared an energy model for the building including the computers and the result is a process load that is 64% of the total energy consumed by the building. The server grade pc's are the primary consumer of the process energy. Can I exclude the difference between the server grade pc's and standard pc's from the building energy calculations? Is this simply documented in the narrative?
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Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5909 thumbs up
April 27, 2012 - 10:27 am
Nope you must include the servers.
You might want to look at LEED 2012, back out for public comment on May 1, for some guidance regarding data centers.
Todd LaFreniere
Project ManagerFPI Mechanical
33 thumbs up
April 27, 2012 - 11:02 am
Marcus - thanks for the reply. I'm discouraged though to learn that there is no way to exclude the servers from the overall consumption.
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5909 thumbs up
April 27, 2012 - 11:26 am
The rational is pretty simply. The environment does not care if it is a kWh of consumption used for lighting or servers, regulated or non, process or not. That is why LEED makes you count it all. Nothing can be excluded.
The design team includes the owner so this item is within your collective control even if you are not designing it. So given the situation this should force a conversation with them about the energy use of the servers. On one of our recent projects the owner was shown the energy implications of adding additional servers and then decided to not add them!
Part of that conversation should include an exploration of more energy efficient options for the servers. As I said look to LEED 2012 for a possible baseline to use for the servers to claim savings against.
The real point is to save energy. As I have said before do not seek exclusions but rather seek opportunities for even greater savings. In the spirit of LEED seek to find a way to use less, not an excuse to use more.
Chilufya Lombe
Sustainability ConsultantSolid Green Consulting
30 thumbs up
May 3, 2012 - 9:24 am
Hi, have been looking through LEED 2012 (not sure which public comment version) and cannot find a reference for a figure we can use as a possible baseline for server loads. I did find an old document (LEED® Green Building Rating System™ For Core & Shell Development
Version 2.0) that gives a figure of 50w/sqft for server rooms in shell and core buildings. Would this be a reasonable baseline to use?
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5909 thumbs up
May 3, 2012 - 12:13 pm
The public comment version for 2012 should be stated on the first page. The data center guidance is at the end of the Minimum Energy Performance prerequsite. I just looked it over and it gives some modeling guidance but not a definative baseline.
I do know that the industry has had difficulty coming to agreement on the appropriate metric, let alone a definitive baseline.
The next place I would look is in COMNET.
Not sure about the old CS value as this the data center industry changes fast.