Hi. I am working for this project - a small one-floor office building, which has a 14 m2 server room. The project for the server room has not been developed yet - there will be a specific project for this, and the Facilities Design Engineer does not have a clue on how to make a rough estimate for IT equipment. I have searched for some values in both LEED v2009 and v4, as there are for default plug loads - that shall be used in the case of tenant spaces, but there are no. And I did not find anything in both ASHRAE Handbook of Fundamentals, Chapter Nonresidental Cool. and Heat. Load Calculations and in 90.1-2007 either. I understand that plug loads shall be modeled as designed, but... is there any reference I might use at an early design stage? There is this white paper from LBNL called "Energy Efficiency in Small Server Rooms: Field Surveys and Findings", available at http://aceee.org/files/proceedings/2014/data/papers/9-109.pdf... They have assessed some server rooms and from Tables 2 and 3 I found this range: from 142 W/m2 to 1,076 W/m2. Since the FTE of the building is about 55, I imagine a single rack of 1,5 kW would be sufficient. That gives near 100 W/m2. According to another white paper, this one from American Power Conversion, available at http://www.apcdistributors.com/white-papers/Cooling/WP-120%20Guidelines%20for%20Specification%20of%20Data%20Center%20Power%20Density.pdf, "a typical data center today has a density rating of 1.5 kW per rack". Would anyone give me a tip on this? Thank you.

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Jean Marais

b.i.g. Bechtold DesignBuilder Expert

LEEDuser Basic Member

581 thumbs up

Thu, 04/23/2015 - 04:46

"from 142 W/m2 to 1,076 W/m2"...this is why owners need to wake up and smell the coffee. Server rooms are a "double wammy" as they use power and need just as much power to keep cool. I usually use 694 W/m² for a small office server room of about 18 m² where I don't get any input from the rest of the team, i.e. your situation. =(2*2500/18+0.25*2*2500/18)*2...based on 2 blade server racks @ 128 servers per rack = 2*25 kW + 25% ancillary equipment (data storage, UPS, etc.) + 100% future growth in server closet 18m2 Alternatively look at: Australian Minimum Energy Performance Standards http://www.energyrating.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/Energy_Rating_Documents/Product_Profiles/Other/Data_Centres/200905-data-centre-efficiency.pdf ...alternatively ASHRAE Journal Feb 2013, Internal IT Load Profile Variability = 538 to 2153 W/m2 for Data Centers and 108 to 161 W/m2 for offices Bottom line is that ASHRAE 90.1-2007 does not regulate what you should use. It is a process load and is the same in both models. You can define whatever you think is suitable.

Marcus Sheffer

LEED Fellow

7group / Energy Opportunities

LEEDuser Expert

4454 thumbs up

Thu, 04/23/2015 - 13:09

Yes you can submit what you think is suitable - within reason and backed up by a reputable source.

NANDA GOWRI

Architecture Student

Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology

LEEDuser Basic Member

0 thumbs up

Thu, 11/28/2019 - 01:55

I have found some standards for different types of loads in a building. https://vrfwizard.com/calculating-cooling-load/ Hope this is helpful!

Julio Fernandez Amodia

LEEDuser Basic Member

5 thumbs up

Mon, 03/13/2023 - 15:21

Energy Star set the server room loads to 65 W/occupant for conventional systems and 48 W/occupant for Energy Star. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/60266.pdf This is hopefully a good approach.

Jean Marais

b.i.g. Bechtold DesignBuilder Expert

LEEDuser Basic Member

581 thumbs up

Tue, 03/14/2023 - 08:39

Yeah, those numbers look realistic for office small server room usage. I like that it's per person "using" the server facility as apposed to per area. Be aware that the numbers could change in the future, like a server room could be serving one floor now and later the service might be extended to serve the floor below and above it as well. In past projects, I've seen small server rooms in offices equiped with anything from 1,3 to 3 kW fancoils. ASHRAE Journal Feb 2013, Internal IT Load Profile Variability = 538 to 2153 W/m2 for Data Centers and 108 to 161 W/m2 for offices Also, don't neglect the load profile which runs at about 20% at night when their's not much traffic. During the day it also fluctuates from about 60 to 80 % seldomly peaking at 100%.

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