Energy-saving schemes

The energy consump­tion of a server room can amount to ⅓^th of the elec­tric­ity consump­tion of an office. The elec­tric­ity consump­tion of 1 square meter computer center is compa­ra­ble to the use of an average house­hold: approx­i­mately 3,000 kWh per year.

Below you will find an overview of the energy saving measures, first for primary server equip­ment and then for cooling the server room. 

Install power management on the server

This line is part of the SIC DcIC certificate.

With power manage­ment, the clock speed of the proces­sor can be adjusted depend­ing on the number of calcu­la­tions required per second by the proces­sor. Due to power manage­ment, the proces­sors do not work contin­u­ously at full clock speed. 

Other energy saving measures:

• Outsource your data storage

• Make optimal use of ICT capacity

• Virtu­al­ize servers

• Pay atten­tion to energy effi­ciency when purchas­ing servers

• Choose an energy-effi­cient UPS

• Use power and cabling that complies with TIA 942

• Measure the energy consump­tion of auxil­iary equipment

• Work with certi­fied installers

Energy measures for cooling the server room

A lot of heat is released when process­ing data. Cooling off this heat costs on average 25% of the total energy consump­tion of the server room.

• Extract heat at source in small server rooms
• Provide cold and warm corridors
• Close unused posi­tions in the racks with blind panels
• Set climate zones
• Prevent loss of cold air
• Increase server room indoor temperature
• Apply Free Cooling
• Limited speed fans in room coolers server room
• Choose an energy-effi­cient cooling machine
• Reuse the heat produced by the ICT equip­ment (this scheme is being further devel­oped by the save energy foundation)
• Use PCMs
• Get a white or reflec­tive roof

All these schemes are explained in more detail on Stim­u­lar. The Stim­u­lar Foundation’s mission is to accel­er­ate the sustain­abil­ity of compa­nies and orga­ni­za­tions by sharing knowl­edge and experience.