Energy Implications of Economizer Use in California Data Centers

In this paper, based on building energy models, we report energy savings for air-side and water-side economizer use in data centers in several climate zones in California. Results show that in terms of energy savings, air-side economizers consistently outperform water-side economizers, though the performance difference varies by location. Model results also show that conventional humidity restrictions must by relaxed or removed to gain the energy benefits of air-side economizers.

Author(s): Shehabi, A., S. Ganguly, K. Traber, H. Price, A. Horvath, W. Nazaroff, and A. Gadgil