US Government earmarks $2.8 million for a data centre cooling energy usage project

The Edison Materials Technology Centre (EMTEC) is celebrating after being awarded the project by the US Department of Energy (DOE). EMTEC will conduct the project in collaboration with Clustered Systems, Menlo Park, CA, Emerson/Cooligy, Mountain View, CA, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA, among others.

As the world becomes increasingly IT dependent, the amount of energy consumed by data centres rises too. A report authored by researchers at the US Government's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2007, for example, found that energy usage in data centres doubled between 2000 and 2006, and is poised to double again by 2011. Indeed, electricity consumed in data centre and telecom systems is already estimated to account for a staggering 3% percent of total electricity consumption in the US.

The government has plenty of reasons to care about this, but one of the most obvious is financial. If growth continues at current levels, the federal government alone will be shelling out $740 million for data centre electricity bills in 2011. Historically, upwards of 45% of the total energy consumed by data centres has been used to provide cooling.

The objective of this latest project is therefore to develop a very dense liquid-cooled computer platform, which Dr, Michael Martin, VP Alternative Energy Technology for EMTEC, highlights “has the potential for up to a 36% reduction in data centre cooling energy usage” allowing for significant data system energy efficiency improvements.

Over the last few years, there have been significant efforts to cut the energy used for IT cooling by making small improvements to the cooling equipment and the control of air movement. However, Frank Svet, EMTEC President/CEO, comments that “EMTEC expects to utilise staff experience in design of high-powered electronic products to achieve a breakthrough in data centre and telecom power supply cooling” in this DOE-funded project.

In concert with the US DOE’s EERE Recovery Act programme for “Energy Efficient Information and Communication Technology”, this project will develop a fundamentally new architecture based upon liquid cooling and encompassing both infrastructure and equipment. EMTEC explain that “it will be low cost, have a small carbon footprint and design that comprehends board layout for heat transfer from the servers’ internal components to ultimate dissipation of the heat to the ambient environment”. Existing components, technologies and work practices will be used wherever possible.

Frank Svet is a member of the Cleveland Slovenian Business and Professionals Association http://www.clevelandslovenian.com/photos/2009-04-23.shtml