Is An Energy-Wasting Data Center Draining Your Bottom Line?

An unforgiving economic climate has left many organizations struggling to sustain (or restore) profitability. Many of them reacted to the downturn by restructuring, trimming back R&D and marketing, and laying off employees. All of these moves leave a company in a vulnerable position when the market rebounds, which it inevitably will.

Meanwhile, huge potential savings are sitting, untapped, right in the company’s data center. Data center energy costs as a percent of total revenue are at an all-time high. In fact, energy costs are emerging as the second highest operating cost in the IT organization, behind labor. A typical onemegawatt data center consumes 16 million kilowatt-hours of electricity a year—roughly equivalent to the energy consumed by 1400 average U.S. households.

The IT and electrical industries have responded with new energy-saving technologies and approaches that could have a notable, positive impact on a company’s profitability. This white paper looks at two key ways that data center managers can improve end-to-end energy efficiency: by changing the voltage of power distribution and by taking advantage of new, high-efficiency, multi-mode uninterruptible power systems (UPSs).

This analysis shows that 400V AC power distribution offers a high degree of energy efficiency for modern data centers, significantly reducing capital and operational expenditures and total cost of ownership, compared to 600V AC and traditional 480V AC power systems. Recent developments in UPS technology—including the introduction of transformer-less UPSs with new energy management features— further enhance a 400V AC power distribution system to maximize energy efficiency.