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Real-time PUE driving sustainability

Real-time PUE driving sustainability

17 July 2024 Anton Menkveld Energy Management

Power Usage Efficiency (PUE) is a key metric in driving data centre efficiency and sustainability. PUE measures the amount of power used by a data centre relative to the amount of power used by the IT equipment it contains. The lower the PUE, the more energy efficient the data centre is considered to be.

Asset level electrical monitoring systems such as Numen, can help to improve PUE by providing real-time data on energy consumption and usage. This data can be used to identify areas of power waste and inefficiency, and to implement changes that can improve the overall PUE of the data centre. For example, if the data reveals that a significant amount of energy is being consumed by a specific asset, changes can be made to reduce their energy consumption and improve PUE. This is often just changes in operating parameters such as temperature set point, but can also guide replacement and renewal expenditure.

The following graph shows the dramatic energy reduction, experienced by a Numen data centre customer after replacing a chiller unit:

  • Annual energy cost saving of approximately AU$ 150,000 (US$ 113,000)
  • Estimated payback period, based on Numen provided consumption data, is less than 3 years
  • Estimated carbon reduction of 980 tonnes (based on 0.949 tonnes CO2e / MWh for the State of Victoria, Australia) 
  • 56% improvement in site PUE

PUE is becoming increasingly important as data centres continue to grow and consume more energy. In addition to reducing costs and improving energy efficiency, a lower PUE can also help data centres to meet sustainability goals and reduce their environmental impact.

Ecocentric Energy’s Numen system is designed to assist in improving PUE and the overall energy efficiency of data centres. By providing real-time data on energy consumption and usage of individual assets, Numen can help data centre operators to identify areas of improvement and make changes that will result in lower PUE and increased energy efficiency.

Numen is designed to be easy to install and retrofit to data centre infrastructure and provide the modular data acquisition and analysis platform needed to track PUE and many other metrics in real-time.