ASHRAE Journal - February 2023 - 50

FEATURE
the difference could be $700 million per year. Likewise,
inefficient sites of any size waste a disproportional
amount of energy and can be uneconomical.
A Time Line of Standard 90.4
When the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) commissioned
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to
undertake a study of data center energy consumption
in the United States, the resulting publication
in December 2007 caused many to take
notice. It concluded that data centers
were already consuming 1.5% of the
total U.S. energy production, that
data center power consumption
had doubled in the previous
five years, would double
again in the next five years,
and would require the
equivalent of 10 new utility
electric power plants to handle.
In short, the rate of growth was
unsustainable. The industry took
notice, and ASHRAE SSPC 90.1 certainly
took notice. The clause exempting
data centers from Standard 90.1 requirements
was simply removed in the 2010 revision.
When ASHRAE published Standard 90.1-2010, two
significant factors created concerns in the data center
industry. First was simply that the removal of the data
center exemption required data center designs to
undergo efficiency scrutiny as part of the permitting
process. Second was the mandate that data centers,
like all other buildings, had to use free-cooling economizers.
The data center industry stakeholders were
not pleased and let their concerns be known publicly,
including formal comments submitted during the
public review process that is required for all proposed
revisions to ANSI standards. The data center industry
stakeholders also expressed their concerns through
correspondence with relevant ASHRAE committees
including SSPC 90.1 and Technical Committee 9.9,
Mission Critical Facilities, Data Centers, Technology
Spaces and Electronic Equipment, as well as through
correspondence with ASHRAE leadership.
Some of the concerns regarded risks of ITE outages
and possible ITE damage due to failed economizer
operation, particularly during switchovers, resulting
50
ASHRAE JOURNAL ashrae.o rg
F E B R U A RY 2023
It is the ITE
power load and
density that serve
as the demarcation
between the applicability
of these two
independent,
but interrelated
standards.
in loss of cooling, condensation or other catastrophic
scenarios. These were not theoretical. There had been
enough documented real-life cases to validate the
comments and objections. More broadly was the general
concern that new regulatory red-tape, particularly
in the form of a " prescriptive " standard, would inhibit
and impair the power and cooling innovation required
to support ever more sophisticated ITE needs.
Moreover, the data center industry was fully focused
on energy conservation. ASHRAE TC
9.9 had already published Thermal
Guidelines for Data Processing
Environments as a radical step in this
direction. The Uptime Institute
had long before established the
hot aisle/cold aisle concept
and was pushing aisle containment.
The Green Grid
had published the power
usage effectiveness (PUE)
metric to track operational efficiency.
Computing devices had
also became more energy efficient
and were continuing to improve. In
short, industry action without mandates
from Standard 90.1 had already kept the DOE's
dire predictions from becoming reality. Though still
increasing, data center power consumption remained
well below the 2007 DOE study prediction.
Further, as the power densities of new generations of
ITE continued to increase, the ratio between the capital
cost to purchase ITE vs. the operating costs to power it
were continually changing. When the costs of powering
the ITE for three years (the average ITE life span due to
technology " refreshes " ) cost more than the ITE itself,
CFOs everywhere took notice of increasing electricity
costs, and the industry responded with more research,
innovation and unique solutions. In short, a prescriptive
mandate was regarded as both an unnecessary
imposition and a worrisome constraint. However, that
did not mean that energy efficiency in the data center
industry could simply be ignored. There were still
far too many data centers, both existing and under
design and construction, using equipment and design
approaches that were simply not suitable for efficient
operation in the unique data center environment.
An important part of ASHRAE's mission is to promote
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ASHRAE Journal - February 2023

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