Utilizing vitality effectively is one vital part of information heart sustainability. However water utilization performs an equally vital position in sustainability for information heart operators. In reality, water effectivity is primed to turn out to be much more vital in coming years because of rising groundwater shortages.
That is why Water Utilization Effectiveness (WUE) is an important metric for information heart operators to trace. As this information explains, WUE helps information facilities observe how a lot water they use, in addition to discover methods to optimize water utilization.
What Is Water Utilization Effectiveness (WUE)?
Water Utilization Effectiveness (WUE) is a metric that measures how effectively information facilities use water.
WUE is calculated by evaluating the full water consumed by an information heart to the vitality consumed by its IT tools. Which means that WUE isn’t a measure of how a lot water an information heart consumes in whole. As an alternative, it’s a way of assessing how a lot water a facility makes use of relative to the amount of IT tools housed within the constructing.
The WUE metric was conceptualized by The Green Grid, a non-profit targeted on enhancing information heart effectivity, in 2011. It serves a function much like metrics like Energy Utilization Effectiveness, which additionally helps measure the sustainability of information heart operations.
Environment friendly water administration is important for sustainable information heart cooling techniques.
How Do Information Facilities Use Water?
To know totally why monitoring WUE is vital and which components have an effect on WUE calculations, you should first perceive how and why information facilities devour water.
The principle method that information facilities use water is for cooling functions. Whereas water-based cooling techniques for information facilities differ in design, most work by utilizing water to soak up warmth from IT tools. They then transfer the heated water to locations the place it may be expelled into the setting as a liquid or evaporate right into a gasoline.
This method to information heart cooling is critical in most larger-scale amenities as a result of they include a whole lot of IT tools, and the tools generates a whole lot of warmth. Whereas chilled-air cooling techniques that don’t require vital quantities of water could suffice in smaller information facilities, many bigger information facilities have to depend on water as a key ingredient within the cooling course of.
How you can Calculate WUE
To calculate WUE, you want two information factors:
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The entire water consumed by your information heart, measured in liters, over a set interval.
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The entire vitality consumed by the IT tools in your information heart, measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh), over the identical interval.
Then, divide the primary quantity by the second to calculate WUE.
For instance, in case your information heart makes use of 100,000 liters of water per day and 50,000 kilowatt hours of vitality, your WUE calculation can be:
100,000L / 50,000kWh = 2.0 L/kWh
On this simplified instance, we calculated WUE based mostly on each day measures of water and vitality utilization. For a extra correct calculation, it’s best to calculate WUE based mostly on month-to-month or (even higher) yearly water and vitality consumption information. It is because short-term fluctuations in useful resource consumption could yield unrepresentative calculations if you happen to observe WUE based mostly on a single day’s utilization.
Advantages of Water Utilization Effectiveness
Calculating WUE supplies a number of key advantages:
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Assessing sustainability: Since water is a finite useful resource, understanding how effectively your information heart makes use of it’s a key facet of measuring general sustainability.
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Lowering prices: Water prices cash. Realizing how effectively your information heart makes use of water is vital for making certain that you simply don’t waste cash.
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Optimizing cooling system effectivity: As a result of water’s main use inside information facilities is for cooling, monitoring WUE supplies visibility into how effectively cooling techniques are working. Programs that devour massive volumes of water relative to the IT tools they help could also be performing poorly.
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Bettering group relations: Monitoring and reporting on WUE may help information heart operators alleviate considerations in native communities that their amenities overuse water.
Thus, monitoring WUE is vital not only for sustainability, but in addition for advancing information heart enterprise objectives.
Challenges and Limitations of Water Utilization Effectiveness
Whereas WUE is a helpful strategy to estimate general water utilization effectivity and determine waste, it’s not good.
Arguably, essentially the most vital problem is that WUE doesn’t differentiate between completely different sources of water, although water sourcing can play an vital position in sustainability efforts. For instance, an information heart that repurposes greywater for cooling would have the identical WUE numbers as one which depends on “new” water sourced from a municipal water system (assuming vitality consumption is similar in each circumstances), although the latter follow is much less sustainable.
Monitoring and reporting WUE will also be difficult as a result of information heart operators could measure whole water utilization and whole vitality utilization in inconsistent methods. As a result of most amenities solely have one central water meter, they normally measure whole water based mostly on all water they ingest, even when a few of that water is used for functions (like landscaping or supplying loos) that aren’t associated to core information heart operations. Nonetheless, some amenities could set up meters that permit them to trace water used for information heart cooling alone and use these figures when calculating WUE. The latter follow can result in decrease WUE numbers, even when the full water used for information heart operations is similar.
Equally, as a result of energy system meters normally solely observe whole vitality consumption by a whole facility, the ability information used when calculating WUE could be thrown off in circumstances the place vital quantities of vitality are dedicated to functions aside from working IT tools. To realize essentially the most correct WUE estimate, you’d want to put in energy meters that measure vitality consumption solely by your IT tools, however most information facilities don’t do that.
What Is the Splendid WUE Quantity?
The decrease your WUE, the extra sustainable your information heart is more likely to be. Certainly, the “excellent” WUE quantity is zero – within the sense that ideally, an information heart would discover a method to make use of no water in any respect. Nonetheless, as famous above, that’s not possible for many information facilities, which want water to chill IT tools.
Extra virtually talking, the average WUE throughout information facilities is 1.8 L/kWh. Beating that common is an inexpensive WUE aim.
Essentially the most environment friendly information heart operators, nonetheless, report WUE metrics which might be a lot decrease than the typical; for instance, Amazon reports that its WUE is a mere 0.19 L/kWh. That is seemingly as a result of Amazon’s information facilities are very massive, creating economies of scale that make it simpler to make use of water effectively.
Learn extra of the most recent information heart cooling information and perception
Methods to Enhance Information Middle Water Utilization Effectiveness
Information heart operators striving to enhance water utilization effectivity and sustainability can contemplate practices like the next:
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Use recycled water: Cooling information facilities with recycled water is a well-established follow. And whereas it gained’t truly scale back your WUE metric (as a result of WUE doesn’t account for water sources, as famous above), it’ll make your water utilization extra sustainable.
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Return water to its supply: Slightly than dumping water into public wastewater techniques after the cooling course of is full, contemplate returning water to the pure setting. Right here once more, this gained’t scale back your precise WUE numbers, nevertheless it reduces the vitality required to “clear” your information heart’s water (which frequently doesn’t require cleansing as a result of information heart cooling processes don’t usually pollute water).
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Improve information heart temperature: Elevating the temperature inside your information heart can enhance WUE by lowering the quantity of warmth your system must dissipate. Information heart corporations like Equinix have discovered that rising the temperature only a few levels can ship main effectivity boosts with out inserting IT tools in danger.
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Monitor water utilization information: Monitoring fluctuations in water utilization and correlating them with different information factors (like ambient temperatures or modifications in energy consumption) may help determine alternatives to enhance the effectivity of water utilization. As an illustration, chances are you’ll discover you can reduce on water consumption when outdoors temperatures are decrease, fairly than ingesting water at a set quantity no matter ambient temperatures.
