HP Green Data Center Vision Offers Eco-Friendly Power, Cooling Technology

by Jeffrey Burt

At the HP Enterprises Services data center in Tulsa, Okla., Hewlett-Packard used reflective material on the roof as part of an expansion project that saw the facility double in size to 400,000 square feet. The material reflects a lot of the sun’s heat away from the building. Click here to read the article on HP’s green data centers.

A feature of the new cooling system in Tulsa was the elimination of a lot of the 90-degree T pipe connections, instead putting in curved connections angled at 45 degree angles, which reduces the amount of pressure needed to move the water through the pipes, thus cutting down on energy consumed. An 800,000-gallon chilled water storage tank enables the facility to run for eight hours without using the chiller/cooling plant.

The new environmental features enable the data center to handle the wide range of temperatures that hit Oklahoma, and also allow it to still withstand a force five tornado.

Power Loft worked with HP in creating its first development, called Power Loft @ Innovation, in McLean, Va. The 220,000-square-foot facility is a two-story design that segregates critical power and cooling infrastructure from the raised floor environment, which designers say optimizes the flow of power and cooling. The company expects to save $10.5 million a year in electricity costs over a more traditional design.

Power Loft’s air-conditioning system uses air to cool customer rack areas rather than chilled water. Power Loft also will be able to scale the facility in modular increments of 50,000 square feet, and in power increments from 100 to more than 300 watts per raised square foot.

Through its data center design, Power Left can accommodate 50 percent more racks and 100 percent more power than comparable Tier III facilities, while using 70 percent less non-critical power.

HP Enterprise Services’ data center is in Newcastle, England, just off the frigid North Sea, which will enable the company to use the cold outside air to help cool the facility. The cold air is mixed with the air that’s already inside, fed into the data center’s cold aisles through grates in the floor, then funneled through the equipment and exhausted out the back. Some of the warm air is sent back outside, and the rest is reused.

HP anticipates 40 percent savings in annual energy usage, and will cut mega watt hours from 27,500 to 20,000 per year. The 305,000-square-foot data center, which used to be a distribution center, also will offer a smaller carbon footprint by reducing CO2 production from 17,500 metric tons to 8,770 over comparable facilities.

Like with HP’s Tulsa data center, Wynyard uses reflective material on the roof, and rainwater from the roof is captured for use with the landscaping and fire fighting. The walls of the data center are painted white, and lights are put at an angle 45 degrees to the server rows, which brightens the facility and reduces the amount of electric light needed.

The managed hosting provider in Portland, Ore., is relying heavily on HP ProLiant G6 servers, including the BL460c systems shown here, and virtualization technology to increase density and reduced power consumption in its data center. The Opus Interactive data center can host 29 times more servers per rack (about 1,200 virtual machines per rack) at half the power consumption of comparable facilities.

The electricity used by the Opus Interactive data center is 100 percent wind power from Portland General Electric, and the facility uses motion sensor lighting.