Evocative Data Centers Bolsters Its Green Energy Initiative, Significantly Reducing PUE In Its Silicon Valley Facilities
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Evocative, Inc shifts towards greener energy solutions in their Northern California data centers with the recent installation of airside economization units in Emeryville, and the installation of high-efficiency precision cooling systems in San Jose.
"As of this quarter, PUE levels have improved by 38% in our Emeryville facility."
Built-in the early 2000s at the end of the “.com” era, Evocative’s Emeryville and San Jose facilities are considered 2nd generation data centers. Back then, data center operators placed greater emphasis on reliability and availability when operating and building facilities. This meant that 2nd generation data centers were not built to Today’s standards in efficiency, resulting in higher PUE levels (Power Usage Effectiveness) with their total facility energy usage much higher than the total energy consumed by IT equipment.
Although emphasizing reliability has earned these facilities over 18 years of uptime, Evocative is actively making changes towards greater efficiency by installing new modifications such as energy-saving lighting and airside economizers in its Emeryville data center, and precision cooling systems in San Jose.
Less than 0.25 miles from the San Francisco Bay with a constant year-round cool climate, Evocative’s Emeryville Data Center was a prime candidate for an airside economization system. With the new airside economizers, cool air is drawn in from the outside environment using large ductwork and fans. After filtering out external particles, the air is then directed into a series of CRAC units to reduce the intake temperature (Partial Economization). If the air is already at the target cooling temperature, it is applied directly to the data center to reduce its heat load (Full Economization). Additionally, if the outside air exceeds the current return temperature in the Data Center, then the Economizer shuts down. This process eliminates the need for mechanical cooling during cooler climate periods, which will significantly lower the PUE ratio and further cut air conditioning costs for data centers.
Since the installation in late October 2018, Evocative’s Emeryville location has seen a reduction in the PUE by 38 %. This accomplishment, coupled with its recent retrofitting of the existing traditional fluorescent bulb lighting to a modern LED system, is just the beginning for Evocative Data Centers.
Currently, Evocative is overseeing the installation of two new Liebert DSE 85 high-efficiency precision cooling systems in their San Jose data center.
"Because of this retrofit PUE levels in San Jose are predicted to be 40% more efficient between the late spring and summer months and up to 1000% more efficient in the winter months.“
With a similar function to Emeryville’s airside economizers, the DSE 85 systems utilize a pumped refrigerant economizer that varies cooling and airflow in translation to data center workload requirements all without the use of water. This not only reduces cost, but it increases overall facility efficiency while saving billions of gallons of water each year.
Evocative is very excited about its green initiative, with many anticipated changes to come by the year 2020, including the addition of four more Liebert DSE 85 systems in San Jose, and the replacement of existing AC systems in their Virginia data center. These retrofits to their aging data center infrastructure affirm that Evocative is taking the pivotal steps necessary in being a more eco-friendly, forward-thinking, Data Center Operator.
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