Nation’s third-largest public utility audits and
enhances data center energy efficiency
HP Energy Efficiency Analysis confirms paybacks of best practices,
quantifies further gains
“We know much more about our data center facility than we did before. The
way HP conducted the audit and presented the findings verified that we’re on
the right track and pointed us to further investments with the biggest return.”
—John Bistany, Manager, IT Infrastructure, Salt River Project
HP customer case
study: HP Critical
Facilities Services,
delivered by EYP
MCF*
Industry: Utility
Objective:
•Verify and enhance best practices in energy
management of mission-critical data center by
assessing and improving energy efficiency of facility
•Exemplify best practices in energy efficiency to
its customer base
Approach:
Using proven, standardized methodology,
measure and benchmark power usage and
identify quantifiable energy conservation
measures and their paybacks
Data center improvements:
•Raise temperature set points of UPS and battery rooms
•Segregate hot/cold aisles
•Disable heaters on CRAC/H units
•Lower set points of generator jacket water
heaters
•Standardize CRAC/H units with variable speed drives
Business outcomes:
•Determine paybacks of recent energy
conservation investments
•Benchmark energy efficiency against peer
operations
•Identify $53,352 more in yearly energy savings
Salt River Project (SRP) is the third-largest public
power utility in the U.S. Providing electricity to nearly
930,000 residential, business and industrial customers
throughout a 2,900-square-mile area in central
Arizona, SRP is driven by its mission to deliver lowcost, reliable power. SRP is guiding the communities it
has served for more than a century into a new energy
era with 21st century conservation practices.
By producing electricity using renewable sources, SRP
is striving to help preserve natural resources, improve
air quality and reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
The utility has initiated numerous energy-conservation
initiatives in its own operations and its PowerWise™
program offers corporate customers rebates for
energy-efficient practices.
Applying these principles to reduce the energy usage
and carbon footprint of its own mission-critical data
center, SRP commissioned HP to analyze the energy
efficiency of the facility, located at SRP offices in
Tempe, Arizona.
Conducted by HP Critical Facilities Services (CFS)
engineers, the HP Energy Efficiency Analysis covered
the mechanical and electrical infrastructures as well
as the air management of the raised floor. The audit
confirmed the benefits of recent enhancements to
the facility and also uncovered further measures
worth an estimated $53,000 in annual savings, a
reduction of 289 tons of CO2 emission per year,
and annual energy savings of 684,878 kWh. Many
•Cut annual energy usage by 684,878 kWh
•Lower carbon emissions by 289 tons per year
•Prioritize future improvements with solid cost/
benefit data
* Professional engineering services will be offered and provided in
accordance with local regulations. In the U.S. this will be through EYP
Mission Critical Facilities, Inc., or an appropriately licensed entity under
its direction.
recommendations cost nothing to implement and
others with an estimated total investment of $90,000
have a projected payback of less than two years.
achieve efficiency improvements that generate rapid,
substantial returns, with all the data laid out in front of
you to make informed decisions.”
Using industry accepted metrics, the team calculated
the annual average Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE)
of SRP’s facility as 2.16, better than average among
five data centers in its climate zone, according
to HP benchmark data. The HP engineers’ report
recommended conservation measures that can
reduce the annual average PUE by 17% to 1.79, an
exemplary level of efficiency within SRP’s climate zone.
Building on best practices
Located on the first level of the SRP building, the
data center comprises two rooms with 8,000 square
feet of raised floor space. The facility shares its
mechanical and electrical equipment—including dual
configurations of UPS units, diesel generators, and
chillers—with the rest of the site, a six-floor office
building occupied by 900 employees.
“As an electric utility, SRP has focused heavily on
conservation and adopted sustainability practices across
our organization,” says John Bistany, manager of IT
infrastructure at SRP. “HP’s service enabled us to quantify
and benchmark the impacts of changes we’ve made
over the past several years and build from our strengths.”
“One of our challenges in trying to measure IT power
usage is the fact that our entire building gets one
bill,” Bistany continues. “How do we know which part
represents our cost?”
An SRP Qualified Service Provider in the PowerWise
program, HP provides the same audit to SRP
customers, who can lower their energy bills by
making measurable gains in energy efficiency.
“HP’s audit lets us be an example to our customers,”
says Bistany. “Our experience shows how you can
The HP Energy Efficiency Analysis offered a proven,
standardized process to identify the performance of
facility infrastructures as a whole and by component.
More rigorous analyses were required to isolate the
data center from the rest of building. Measurements
and data from both the data center electrical and
mechanical systems as well as other data from the
building were acquired to understand data center
Energy Conservation Measures
Following are just some of the measures recommended by the HP Energy Efficiency Analysis to lower annual energy usage at the
SRP data center and improve its PUE
Annual Energy
Payback
Savings (kWh)
(Years)
Recommendations
Air Management & Environmental Controls
Incrementally raise CRAH air-discharge temperature
36,000
Immediate
105,000
Immediate
Raise temperature set points of UPS & battery rooms
15,000
Immediate
Implement dual chilled-water set point control strategy
17,000
0.8
Shut off one CRAH unit in raised floor area
30,000
Immediate
Install variable speed drives on CRAC/H fan motors
90,000
5.1
Incrementally raise chilled-water set point
HVAC
Disable heaters on CRAC/H units
122,640
Control CRAC/H units on supply air, not return air
38,000
3.4
Retro-commission water-side economizer
98,000
2.0
Reduce set point of generator jacket water heaters by 15 degrees
26,000
Immediate
44,238
2.9
Electrical
Install automatic lighting controls
Summary of Energy Conservation Measures and Paybacks
The figures below assume implementation of all recommended measures, not only those listed above
Cost
Annual Energy
Savings (kWh)
Annual CO2
Emissions Cut
Payback
(Years)
$16,437
89 tons
0.7
$29,418
159 tons
2.0
Annual
Savings
Recommendations
Air Management &
Environmental Control
$58,500
211,000
HVAC
$11,000
377,640
Electrical Systems
$20,500
96,238
$7,497
41 tons
2.7
TOTALS:
$90,000
684,878 kWh
$53,352
289 tons
1.7
2
“Our experience shows how you can
achieve efficiency improvements that
generate rapid, substantial returns, with all
the data laid out in front of you to make
informed decisions.”
John Bistany, Manager, IT Infrastructure, Salt
River Project
and building energy interdependencies and the
percentage of energy allocated to the data center. The
acquired physical power/thermal measurements and
other data are fed into proprietary software, which
simulates the data center energy use based on the
data center equipment, topologies, and climate zone.
“HP CFS has a depth of facilities expertise and tools,”
Bistany says, “and it was natural for us to work with
HP. SRP uses HP servers and desktops. We have a
long relationship with HP and we have the highest
level of confidence in HP systems, engineering and
people--including our HP account team.”
Among the existing best practices in the data center
is its use of energy-efficient IT technology. “We’ve
gone to blades and virtualization,” says Ray Speth,
manager of the data center facility, “and reduced
the number of physical servers. Our IT equipment is
less than four years old. We retire servers regularly
to take advantage of the latest efficiencies in price,
performance and energy usage.”
SRP’s facilities and data center managers, including
the on-site HVAC specialist and electrician. “We worked
hand in hand as a team,” says Bistany. “Our facilities
people were critical to the success of the audit.”
Using a proven methodology, the HP audit team
collected data and made precise power and thermal
measurements on site without disrupting operations. In
the process, they identified existing efficiencies as well
as sources of excess usage.
“The HP engineers were knowledgeable people,” says
Speth. “We knew this was not their first rodeo. They
analyzed the whole building’s electrical diagrams
and identified the key points feeding power into the
data center. They took readings at these locations and
cross-checked that the sum of power to the data center
plus the power to the other floors equaled the total
supply to the building.”
And using HP’s proprietary analytical software tool,
the HP engineers drew from real-world climate,
carbon, and utility rate data to compare SRP’s energy
use with the performance of peer operations and
SRP had already invested in facilities management
best practices. “We’ve installed air ducts, cold and hot industry best practices. They also employed analytical
modeling and simulations to pinpoint the greatest
aisle configurations, blanking panels and under-floor
potential gains in efficiency.
cabling as well as efficient T8 lamps,” says Speth.
Expertise yields insights
The six-week HP Energy Efficiency Analysis included a
week of preparation and planning; a three-day onsite
audit; and, four weeks later, a review of the report,
which detailed outcomes as well as recommendations for
improvements with their estimated costs and paybacks.
Speth valued the HP team’s practical expertise as well
as its sophisticated methodology and tools. “Our HP
engineers were very thorough and looked at a lot of
things we hadn’t thought of that conserve energy,”
says Speth, “such as raising the temperature of our
battery room.”
From initial planning and data gathering through
review of the findings, HP’s electrical and mechanical
engineers and project manager worked closely with
Knowledge is power
“We know much more about our data center facility
than we did before,” says Bistany. “We knew that we
3
Customer solution
at a glance
•Energy efficiency analysis of
facility including mechanical/
electrical infrastructures and
raised-floor air management
•Facility size: data center
comprising 8,000 square feet of
raised flooring
•Project duration: six weeks from
plan to report, including threeday onsite audit
were close to the mark, having made investments in
energy-efficient practices. We were impressed that the
HP engineers could find still more opportunities.”
The methods as well as the recommendations
served SRP well. “Our HP team educated us as they
conducted the audit and presented their findings,”
says Bistany.
SRP has devised a short list of next steps from the
report’s recommendations. “Our HP team proposed
a number of actions with immediate payback that we
can do easily and at little to no cost,” says Bistany.
These steps include: increasing temperature set points
of the UPS and battery rooms; disabling heaters on
CRAC/H units; lowering the set points of generator
jacket water heaters; increasing the chilled water set
point and/or implementing a dual set point strategy;
and, in the future, possibly installing curtains to
separate hot and cold aisles.
Technology for better business outcomes
To learn more, visit www.hp.com
© 2009 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change
without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty
statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an
additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
This customer’s results depended upon its unique business and IT environment, the way it used HP products
and services and other factors. These results may not be typical; your results may vary.
4AA0-4607ENW, October 2009
“We’re also assessing the cost of retrofitting our
CRAC/H units with variable speed drives,” says Speth,
“which will be standard as we replace legacy systems
with new units.”
Acting on another report recommendation, SRP plans
a closely monitored experiment in running its systems
at a slightly higher temperature while retaining the
capacity to adapt quickly to the extreme heat of its
desert climate.
Now that the HP report has provided a baseline
for measuring performance and a roadmap for
continuous improvement, SRP is using this knowledge
to achieve even more efficiencies.
“Our HP team’s audit and report verified that we’re
on the right track and seeing benefits from our
investments,” concludes Bistany. “The HP team also
pointed us to further investments with the biggest
return.”