Energy efficiency of data centres

In general, data centre operators want to see most of their power purchases being used by the IT-equipment, and not being spent to operate cooling equipment, and other facility equipment. To measure this, the metric PUE (power usage effectiveness) has been developed.

In data centers there are many places where energy losses can occur, e.g. in transformers, UPSs and power supplies. Other sources of energy loss in the data center as a system are of course cooling systems/heat transport, where often large amounts of energy are used to move the heat generated in the servers to the surroundings or heat receivers. Several different control systems are also often involved in the control within a data center, which gives sub-optimizations and non-ideal solutions.

Our basic view on data centers and their management is that you have to take a system perspective, and see the entire energy chain, from energy in, to the service produced (software solution, or calculation). Through a holistic approach where traditionally separated systems can exchange information, we can build new control technology methods, which can also use new technical solutions such as DC power distribution and new cooling methods. Furthermore, the data centers of the future must also be better integrated with the electricity grids, in order to be able to act on varying electricity prices and electricity availability