A Comprehensive Toolkit
Tools presented here can be used sequentially to move from a basic understanding of how energy is used in your data center to identifying opportunities and implementing best practices. We welcome user feedback on how to improve our suite of tools. Email us at CoE@lbl.gov.
Data Center Master List of Efficiency Actions
This comprehensive list of recommended efficiency actions for data centers provides more information on the high-level best practices outlined above as well as a more detailed list of best practices related to cooling air and air management.
Data Center Profiler (DC Pro) Tools (Featured)
The DC Pro tools, DC Pro and the PUE Estimator are two "early stage" profiling tools designed for data center owners and operators to diagnose how energy is being used by their data centers and determine ways to save energy and money.
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Energy Assessment Process Manual
Manual that provides administrative step by step instructions for conducting an energy assessment (before, during, and after the assessment).
Energy Assessment Worksheet
Excel-based worksheet to document metrics, actions, and measurements from data center assessments. It is recommended that users first use the DC Pro tool before using this worksheet.
Energy Assessment Kit Guide and Specification
Guide that covers how a portable and temporary wireless mesh assessment kit can be used to speed up the energy assessment process, reduce the costs, and overcome the issues with respect to shutdowns. This kit is suitable only for data centers with air-cooled IT equipment.
IT Efficiency Tool
IT equipment is at the core of energy consumption in data centers. Energy savings at the IT level will have an impact on essentially all energy use in these facilities. According to the Uptime Institute (2020), many energy efficiency opportunities involving IT equipment such as servers, network, and storage remain untapped.
The Department of Energy's (DOE) Microsoft Excel based IT equipment energy assessment tool was developed to help accelerate the energy savings in data centers by identifying opportunities through IT equipment upgrades.
Download the IT Efficiency Tool
Air Management Tool
The Air Management Tool was developed to accelerate energy savings in data centers without affecting the thermal IT equipment environment by assessing the data center air-management status.
Download the Air Management Tool
Air Management Estimator
The Data Center Air Management Estimator is a simplified version of the Air Management Tool that uses the same engine. The input options in this tool have been reduced in favor of increased clarity.
Download the Air Management Estimator
Guide for Quickly Estimating Air Management Energy Savings in Data Centers: Air Management Lookup Tables
This report presents estimated energy savings for small data center chiller (refrigeration) and fan equipment in a new tabular format for various air management upgrade scenarios. If the scenarios included do not fit a particular data center, a previously developed air management tool (DOE, 2014) can be used to calculate a wide range of data centers and air management scenarios.
Download the Air Management Lookup Tables Guide
Data Center Electrical Power Chain Tool
This Excel-based tool helps data center owners identify energy efficiency opportunities in the electrical power chain of a data center (transformers, generators, UPSs, power distribution units). The tool quantifies the energy and cost savings of the selected measures and calculates the payback periods for each measure. This new version, released in March 2020, offers a cleaner interface, a wider array of UPS load factors and control options (includes "ecomode"), and updated efficiency curves. Note that this tool offers more energy efficiency options than Data Center Profiler (DC Pro) but is not a detailed 'investment-grade' audit tool. The savings estimates are driven by user inputs but based on typical practice and do not account for interactive effects. Actual savings will vary based on site-specific conditions and operations.
Energy Efficiency Assessment Report Template
Microsoft Word template for qualified assessors to report data center energy efficiency assessment findings. The document can easily be filled in with actual site data. The output from DC Pro and the Data Center Master List of Efficiency Actions can be used to complete the Recommended Energy Efficiency Measures section. An example data center energy efficiency assessment report that utilized the template is also available to complement the template.