ISO 50001 Data Centre (Energy Management Systems)

ISO 50001 Data Centre Energy Management

Energy management and structured systems to bring it about, such as ISO 50001, has never been more relevant than when it comes to data centres. The growth of this sector over the past 10 years has generated a whole new system of control of energy, cooling and airflow in banks of servers. ISO 50001 data centre energy management is a whole new science.

The often quoted KPI/EnPI – “PUE” or power usage effectiveness metric defined as

PUE= Total Facility Power Use/IT equipment power use;

is a good measure of overall data centre efficiency and is used for comparison purposes. Many data centres are in the very low 1’s, albeit 1 itself can never be achieved. ISO 50001 data centre management provides a good  framework within which to use this and other metrics to improve overall energy efficiency and running costs.

There are other EnPI’s that can be used to measure other sub-elements of the energy management system and other means by which energy can be measured, tweaked and minimised.

The air flow supply and return temperature metric is the difference between the supply and return air temperatures in a data centre – TMP (range) = dT2-dT1. Where dT1=supply air temperature and dT2=return air temperature. A low supply temperature and small differential between supply and return temperatures indicates opportunities to improve air management, raise supply air temperature and thus reduce energy use.

Combining these and using all of the available measures in a well structured system can bring about real improvement relevant to data centre management and energy efficiency.

• • Ambient relative humidity
  • Return temperature index
  • Airflow efficiency
  • Cooling system efficiency
  • UPS load factor
  • Server equipment load density

For more information about implementing ISO 50001 data centre energy management and how it relates to data centres, please contact us direct on

enquiries@pauldowningltd.co.uk