Innovative technologies: managing IT devices to reduce impacts to building infrastructure

Panel: Panel 4. Residential and commercial sectors: delivering lower energy use in buildings

Author:
Kent Dunn, Verdiem Corporation, USA

Abstract

One of the fastest growing energy loads in a typical commercial building is also one of the most overlooked: IT devices such as computers, printers and servers. Regardless of the efficiency - or inefficiency - of any given building, IT devices have a profound impact on energy consumption and electrical infrastructure.

The market has seen an unprecedented proliferation of IT devices in recent years, which despite being more efficient are also more consumptive than at any point in history. More IT devices consuming more energy are a recipe for energy disaster in many commercial building settings.

IT devices, in addition to being voracious consumers of energy themselves, also force HVAC systems to work overtime to account for their additional heat load. In buildings with hundreds or thousands of computers and other IT devices, this cross-effect energy impact can be striking.

Further, existing commercial buildings are increasingly faced with costly retrofits to their electrical infrastructures to accommodate new load for IT devices. The story is the same for new buildings, which are forced to invest more than ever to insure that energy capacity will be adequate for IT demand.

Fortunately, new IT management systems offer ways to dramatically reduce wasted energy in these devices, and deliver ‘best in class' opportunities for benchmarking, performance monitoring and ongoing diagnostics. The empirical data that can be collected from IT devices is incredibly granular and accurate, and commercial building owners can now make educated management decisions to navigate this tsunami of new energy load.