Many organizations look into power usage effective ratings, or PUE, as a benchmark for energy consumption and data center sustainability. The PUE metric provides a snapshot into the power utilization at a facility, although groups have used different calculations to determine their rating. As PUE can allow for opportunities to improve energy usage, data center operators should seek to reach the most reliable, insightful figure possible. For this reason, The Green Grid Association has partnered with ASHRAE to publish new data center research on the subject, titled “PUE: A Comprehensive Examination of the Metric.”
John Tuccillo, The Green Grid Association chairman, said power and cooling is a complex, critical obstacle that data center organizations must deal with today.
“The Green Grid Association’s PUE metric has been instrumental in helping data center owners and operators better understand and improve the energy efficiency of their existing data centers, as well as helping them make better decisions on new data center deployments,” Tuccillo said.
The new book consolidates all content previously published on the subject, while providing the most recent material as well. The publication is an essential guide for all in the data center industry dealing with energy usage in facilities.
A basic calculation of PUE can be achieved by dividing the total energy utilized by a facility by the energy consumed by the IT equipment. The total facility energy figure should include the electricity used in all systems like power delivery components, cooling system arrangements and other electrical loads including lighting. This total should also include the IT equipment energy load, which comprises all hardware – computing, storage and network arrangements, as well as supplemental equipment like monitors, workstations, laptops and any other devices used to control and oversee the facility.
Once a reliable rating has been obtained through the equation, data center designers and operators can utilize this information to improve a range of facility systems, such as the power and cooling architectures, IT equipment layouts and deployments and other day-to-day operational processes. Overall, the PUE rating provides opportunities to enhance the data center sustainability of the structure.
