We are experiencing problems with an office building that has a data center. We cannot find a subcontractor that is willing to install submeters on the power output (instead of input). Also, the tenant is a bank so there is huge concern on their end about installing on the output as there is a risk of downtime with servers and data loss. Anyone have any advice?
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Michael Opitz
Director of SustainabilityIconergy
60 thumbs up
November 26, 2012 - 6:58 pm
Devin, did your stakeholders give you any more details? I.e., why do the installers shy away from putting the meters on the output? Generally meters can be installed wherever you want them, and generally they're unobtrusive and don't interfere with the existing circuits, so it's unclear to me why they'd be this concerned.
Can you tell: are their concerns well-founded or is it just that they haven't done it this way before?
David Eldridge
Energy Efficiency NinjaGrumman/Butkus Associates
68 thumbs up
November 26, 2012 - 7:35 pm
There are some concerns with having a downstream device that might fail or need to be replaced at some point. Also there may not be a suiitable location to install a meter without downtime?
Michael Opitz
Director of SustainabilityIconergy
60 thumbs up
December 17, 2012 - 7:39 pm
Well, from what you've said, even if the meter fails it should not interfere with normal operation of the circuits, but maybe I'm missing something. If you, the tenant, or landlord regularly work with a local Master Electrician then they should be able to provide the needed assurances.
The tenant is correct, some downtown will be required at installation time, but it can be short if the installer is a good one. As long as all parties are willing to cooperate in planning for and scheduling this downtime it should work out - the tenant can create and execute a temporary shutdown in the name of "needed maintenance" so they'll have no data loss. If they have redundancy from another location then they can even keep their services up and running during installation.
If your stakeholders are unwilling to take steps like these then it's possible they are simply not that interested in complying with ENERGY STAR.
Good luck!
Michael Smithing
Director - Green Building AdvisoryColliers International Ltd.
304 thumbs up
April 4, 2013 - 8:56 am
It is not clear to me from the portfolio manager documentation whether the energy consumption of the data center should be treated as a building sub-meter or whether it should be treated as a main meter (and the consumption netted out of the total building consumption.)
When entering a Facility Energy Meter I have the option to assign the meter consumption to a specific space and to indicate whether it is added to the facility's total energy use.
When I set up the IT energy meter in the Data Center space, I can only select the type of meter but can not indicate whether the meter is to be added to the facility's total energy use.