Emerson Updates Energy Logic Roadmap

It's been four years since Emerson Network Power launched is Energy Logic, its roadmap outlining a holistic approach to reducing energy use in the data center. Much has changed in that time, so today Emerson is updating its recommendations with the release of Energy Logic 2.0, which incorporates advances in technology and best practices.

"The industry has moved in a lot of exciting directions, and technology continues to evolve," said Jack Pouchet, vice president of business development and director of energy initiatives for Emerson Network Power. "We looked at the marketplace and what we can do differently."

Like its predecessor, Energy Logic 2.0 follows the “cascade effect,” in which each watt saved at the processor level amplifies the savings available at each level of equipment. Savings in each part of the data center build upon one another, resulting in significant energy savings. As an example, Emerson says that in a data center with an average Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) rating of 1.9, every watt saved at the server processor generates 2.84 watts of savings at the facility level as a result of the cascade effect. At higher PUEs, the savings is even greater.

Calculator Tracks Cascading Savings

Emerson says Energy Logic 2.0 is a vendor-neutral roadmap of 10 strategies that can reduce a data center’s energy use. The company has also launched the Energy Logic 2.0 Cascading Savings Calculator, an online tool that allows data center managers to calculate the approximate energy savings they would capture by employing strategies in the updated approach.

The Energy Logic 2.0 roadmap was designed and tested on a 5,000-square-foot model data center, and found that full implementation  could reduce the base energy consumption of the data center from 1,543 kW to 408 kW. The roadmap has been updated to reflect high-efficiency server components, power architecture improvements, and advances in temperature and airflow management.

The updated Energy Logic also assumes higher levels of server utilization through virtualization and consolidation, and incorporates data center infrastructure management (DCIM) into the Energy Logic strategy, because DCIM provides the ability to manage manage several of the key strategies in the roadmap, including server power management, virtualization, power architecture, and temperature and airflow management.

The strategies data center managers can explore include:

Many of these strategies and best practices have been widely discussed at industry conferences and guides from industry groups advancing energy efficiency.