COLUMN EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

This article was published in ASHRAE Journal, September 2013. Copyright 2013 ASHRAE. Posted at www.ashrae.org. This article may not be copied and/or distributed electronically or in paper form without permission of ASHRAE. For more information about ASHRAE Journal, visit www.ashrae.org.

IT and Building Loads

BY MILDRED HASTBACKA; MICHAEL RUTBERG; ANTONIO BOUZA, ASSOCIATE MEMBER ASHRAE

The total electricity consumption of information technology (IT) equipment in the U.S. has been estimated to be roughly 100 billion kWh annually (1 quad of primary energy).1 In commercial buildings, computers alone are estimated to account for more than 0.6 quads of primary energy consumption.2 As devices related to IT operations continue to proliferate, they are projected to continue accounting for a large share of direct energy consumption in commercial buildings, as well as contributing strongly to commercial building cooling load.
Technical approaches to reducing IT energy consumption (and commensurate cooling load) include power shut-off devices, equipment upgrades, power management software, virtualization of desktop and server infrastructure, and local area communications based on passive fiber optic networks. Among commercial IT devices are desktop computers and monitors; laptop computers; projectors and other displays; imaging equipment including copiers, scanners and printers; servers; small networking equipment; and uninterruptible power supplies (UPS). The number of these devices and the total energy consumed varies widely across commercial sectors; for example, banks and financial services facilities are relatively IT-intensive compared to, say, industrial wholesale operations. Figure 1 shows results from an analysis of energy and power data, collected at the device level, in a sample office building.3 Computers represent about 15% of the number of devices in use but account for about 45% of the annual energy use. Networking devices account for about 5% of devices in use but more than 10% of annual energy use. Imaging equipment also accounts for more than 10% of annual energy use, although this category represents less than 5% of devices in use. The average operational plug load of IT equipment is typically about 5 W/unit for small devices such as chargers and network components, 20 W/unit for laptops, 35 W/unit for LCD desktop monitors, 65 W/unit for desktop computers and computer servers, 215 W/unit for network laser printers, and 1100 W/unit for a copy machine.4 For a prototypical small office, the aggregate of this IT equipment can account for 65% to 70% of the total peak plug load density, or 0.4 to 0.6 W/ft2. A total
84 A S H R A E J O U R N A L ashrae.org SEPTEM BER 2013 FIGURE 1 Sample office building, electronic devices.3

1,400 1,200 Number of Devices in Use 1,000 800 600 400 200 0
Networking Lighting Imaging Displays Computers Other Other Networking Lighting Imaging Displays

70 60 50 40 30 20 10 Annual Energy Use (MWh) 0 Annual Energy Use (MWh)

Computers

Device Count

reduction of about 20% to 25% in plug load power (about 0.1 W/ft2) could be achieved by using ENERGY STAR rated equipment for all IT equipment, by increasing the proportion of laptop computers relative to desktop computers, by using power management software (whether implemented on a per-machine basis or centrally managed over the network) for all computers, and by deploying outlet occupancy sensor controlled outlets for non-critical devices such as monitors.5 2013 ASHRAE HandbookFundamentals, chapter 18, includes data and methods for calculating the impact of IT equipment on cooling load for non-residential buildings. A relatively new and fast-growing option for managing computer-related building loads is virtualized desktop infrastructure (VDI). VDI is a system of software managed
Mildred Hastbacka is a director and emerging technologies scout and Michael Rutberg is a senior technologist in the Mechanical Systems Group for TIAX LLC, Lexington, Mass.; Antonio Bouza is a technical manager with the U.S. Department of Energy, Washington, D.C.

COLUMN EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

FIGURE 2 Virtualized desktop infrastructure (VDI).

FIGURE 3 Server virtualization.6

Applications Operating System User Interface Hardware Screen Mouse Keyboard USB Ports Server-Based Virtual Desktop

Relational Database

Multiple Independent Servers Application Email

File

Print

Network Connection Run on a Single Physical Server

hardware that enables replacement of high power demand work station computers with lower-power user interface hardware, such as so-called thin desktop clients (Figure 2). The applications and sometimes the operating system, normally resident within the work station computers, reside instead on a central server that interfaces with each of the individual clients. Power required by the user hardware is reduced to little more than that required by the screen, keyboard, mouse and any other peripherals. While the VDI server requires its own electricity, meeting the desktop needs of multiple users with a single machine enables more efficient use of computing resources and, therefore, reduced energy consumption overall. Virtualization is applicable to servers, too. Server virtualization involves use of virtualization software that enables one physical server to perform the functions of multiple independent servers (Figure 3), enabling consolidation and decommissioning of low utilization rate servers and increasing the overall server use rate. One virtual server can replace 10 to 15 existing servers.6 Another approach to managing IT electrical load is replacement of a traditional copper cable-based local area network (LAN) with a passive optical LAN (POL). POLs use fiber optic cables instead of copper cables to supply phone, data, and video services. Because data transmission over fiber has much lower losses than copper, less energy is required for a given data rate. In addition, passive optical systems use a one-to-many communication scheme that reduces the number of switching devices required, further lowering energy consumption. The single largest POL in use today connects a campus of 265 buildings and 13,000 computer network ports.7 Energy savings, projected to be 65% over the copper cable

TABLE 1 Selected energy reduction strategies: banks/office area.8

Strategies

Savings per Unit of Equipment

Replace desktop computers with high250 kWh/year for each desktop efficiency/ENERGY STAR laptop computers. computer replaced with a laptop Replace desktop computers with high-efficiency ENERGY STAR desktop computers. 135 kWh/year for each desktop computer replaced with an ENERGY STAR model

Enable night and weekend shutdown of kWh/year for each computer with existing desktop computers (daily shutdown 180 night and weekend shutdown enabled 8 pm to 7 am and all day Sunday). Replace CRT monitors with LED backlit monitors. 100 kWh/year for every CRT monitor replaced with a LED backlit model

Disable computer screen savers and enable 75 kWh/year for every monitor with the power option settings to standby after standby options enabled 15 minutes. Replace laser printer with ink jet/ENERGY STAR. 165 kWh/year for every laser printer replaced with an ink jet/ENERGY STAR model

105 kWh/year for each laser multiReplace standard laser multi-function device replaced with an device with high efficiency/ENERGY STAR. function ENERGY STAR model Enable night and weekend shutdown of multi-function device (daily shutdown 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. and all day Sunday). 115 kWh/year for each multi-function device with night and weekend shutdown enabled

base case, and cost savings, projected to be $20 million over five years, come in part from reduced losses and in part from elimination of hundreds of power-consuming and maintenance-requiring switches and routers.7

Energy Savings
At the building level, quantitative energy and cost savings realized from IT load reduction strategies are necessarily situation-specific. At the individual device level, energy consumption reduction can be estimated for some commonly used energy management approaches. For example, Table 1 presents results from a
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load reduction assessment for the office areas of banks, and shows the energy reduction per unit of equipment resulting from specific shutdown procedures and equipment upgrades.8 There are many examples of these strategies being successfully applied. Equipment upgrades in addition to implementation of VDI have enabled Goldman Sachs to save more than $1 million in power and related cooling costs across its 35,000 network desktop PCs.9 Server virtualization has enabled BC Hydro to decommission 122 physical servers, yielding annual savings of more than 1.3 million kWh of electricity. The total operating cost of its data center has been reduced by 20% compared to the pre-consolidation configuration, a figure that includes reduced cooling cost resulting from the reduced total server energy consumption.10 Installation of POL instead of a traditional LAN for 2,500 users in a multistory office building for a government contractor resulted in close to 33 kW reduction in total system power requirements along with a reduction in the associated cooling costs.11 Additional capital and operating benefits from this POL system include a

65% reduction in capital equipment cost and a 1,000 ft2 reduction in riser floor space.

Market Potential
Drivers for adoption of IT energy efficiency controls and technologies in commercial buildings include not only the savings that result from reduced energy consumption but also green building design and above-code performance. Savings from IT equipment optimization and control receive credit under above-code programs like LEED. Section 8.4.2 of ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.12010 requires automatic control of 50% of electrical receptacles in private offices, open offices and computer classrooms, including receptacles installed in modular partitions.12 These switched receptacles provide ongoing savings when all small transformers, monitors, and printers are plugged into them. Adoption of VDI is driven by both energy and nonenergy benefits. In addition to cost savings resulting from energy consumption reduction, VDI addresses business needs for secure remote access interfaces and lower helpdesk and management support costs. The

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VDI market, only $500 million in 2009, is projected to approach $5 billion in 2016.13 Servers that host VDI systems are one of the few fast-growing segments of the server market. With respect to the market potential for POL, the current worldwide on premise data cable market is about $6 billion, with copper cable accounting for about 80%, or $4.7 billion.14 New construction, additions, and major renovations present opportunities for POL to penetrate the existing copper data cable market. In regard to market preference for copper cable over fiber optic, cost of energy is only one component of the overall lifetime cost, capital and operating, that guides the choice of one network over another. Near term, the non-energy benefits of POL, particularly its bandwidth advantages, will help drive its market penetration.

4. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. April 2010. Technical Support Document: 50% Energy Savings for Small Office Buildings, PNNL-19341, section 3.6.4. http://tinyurl.com/3pn5oyq. 5. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. April 2010. Technical Support Document: 50% Energy Savings for Small Office Buildings, PNNL-19341, section 5.1.3. http://tinyurl.com/3pn5oyq. 6. Energystar.gov. Server Virtualization. http://tinyurl.com/ m3p2p4f. 7. Sandia National Laboratories. February 28, 2013. Sandias New Fiber Optic Network is Worlds Largest. http://tinyurl.com/n4uryay. 8. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. September 26, 2011. Assessing and Reducing Miscellaneous Electric Loads (MELs) in Banks, PNNL-20973. http://tinyurl.com/kp5rleg. 9. Goldman Sachs. 2013. Operational Impact-Promoting Energy Efficiency. http://tinyurl.com/kn9ne34. 10. BC Hydro. 2008. Power Smart Partners. http://tinyurl.com/lj9hpcp. 11. James Clifton. January 15, 2013. Green Network Solution - Passive Optical Network (PON). http://tinyurl.com/mwttb5x. 12. ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-2010, Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings. 13. CompaniesandMarkets.com. September 18, 2012. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Market to be Worth Nearly $5 billion by 2016. http://tinyurl.com/mk9f3cf. 14. BSRIA. November, 2011. Passive Optical LAN Market. http:// tinyurl.com/kpuevkk.

References
1. Cirrant Partners. 2012. New IT Energy Efficiency Incentives: Opportunities Hiding in Plain Sight. http://tinyurl.com/myhljwg. 2. U.S. Department of Energy. 2010. Buildings Energy Data Book, Table 3.1.4. http://tinyurl.com/3dyzb5v. 3. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. 2012. Using Wireless Power Meters to Measure Energy Use of Miscellaneous and Electronic Devices in Buildings. http://tinyurl.com/kymmka9.

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