Impact of Air Filtration on the Energy and Indoor Air Quality of Economizer-based Data Centers in the PG&E Territory

The goal of the project is to encourage the use of air economizers in data centers by developing a framework for making energy and lifecycle cost comparisons for various filtration options and to better understand the impact of climate on data centers. Specifically, this task aims to provide a real world understanding of the energy savings from using an air-side economizer. Further, this study works to overcome barriers to economizer use by addressing server failure concerns associated with air contaminants and by exploring improved filtration as a potential mitigation strategy. An energy model will be used that considers weather (temperature and humidity) and ambient particle concentrations for five different climate zones within the PG&E territory in California. Prepared for PG&E. Author(s): Ganguly, S., A. Shehabi, B. Tschudi, and A. Gadgil