How to Calculate the PUE of a Data Center: Everything You Need to Know
Data centers swallow extensive energy, especially if inefficiencies exist. That's why monitoring them with metrics like PUE is crucial. PUE of a data center is used to assess its performance and measure the impact of improvements.
Lowering PUE diminishes power usage and costs. But, the question is, “How can we calculate the PUE of a data center?” In this post, we'll get to know the calculation process and learn why it's crucial to minimize the PUE of a data center.
Table of Contents
How and When Should I Calculate the PUE of a Data Center?
Other Data Center Efficiency Indicators
PUE and DCiE in Data Centers
PUE — short for Power Usage Effectiveness — is described as a benchmark that compares the total energy consumption of a data center's facility infrastructure with the energy used by its IT equipment. (PUE = Total facility energy usage / IT equipment energy usage)
In other words, it quantifies the overhead energy used for cooling, lighting, and support systems relative to the energy consumed by servers, storage devices, and networking equipment. A PUE of 1 indicates the utmost efficiency, where all energy is employed by IT operations. Values surpassing 1 demonstrate inefficiencies. Higher numbers indicate greater energy loss.
DCiE — short for Data Center Infrastructure Efficiency — complements PUE by portraying its reciprocal multiplied by a hundred. (DCiE = (1 / PUE) x 100). This percentage metric vividly shows how efficiently a data center employs its energy resources.
For example:
- PUE 3.0 yields DCiE of 33%
- PUE 2.5 yields DCiE of 40%
- PUE 2.0 yields DCiE of 50%
- PUE 1.5 yields DCiE of 67%
- PUE 1.2 yields DCiE of 83%
Higher DCiE values and lower PUE values are desirable as they illustrate sweetened efficiency, diminished energy costs, minimized environmental impact, and enhanced overall performance and dependability of the IT infrastructure.
How and When Should I Calculate the PUE of a Data Center?
To calculate the PUE of a data center, you can follow these steps:
- Step 1: Measure the total energy consumption of the data center using energy meters or utility bills.
- Step 2: Measure the energy consumed by the IT equipment during the same period.
- Step 3: Divide the value from step 1 by the value from step 2 to obtain PUE.
- Step 4: Multiply the inverse PUE by 100 to get DCiE.
- Step 5: Interpret results and try to identify areas for improvement.
The frequency of PUE calculation depends on data center size, infrastructure complexity, and efficiency goals. Generally, it's recommended that you calculate PUE monthly to monitor efficiency and notice deviations from anticipated consumption patterns.
Why Lowering PUE is Critical
Low PUE signifies efficient operations and minimizes energy waste. It lessens costs and environmental impacts and heightens trustworthiness and IT performance. Also, lowering PUE helps data centers enrich their reputation on the market.
What's more, lowered PUE enables scalability without the need for additional energy and cooling infrastructure. The combination of these benefits makes it a critical objective for data centers to reduce their PUE as much as possible.
Other Data Center Efficiency Indicators
Other than PUE and DCiE, the following three metrics are also important in evaluating the performance of a data center:
- Energy Reuse Effectiveness (ERE): This measures the energy reused/recycled within a data center, such as wasted heat repurposed for heating water. (ERE = Total reused energy / Total energy consumed)
- Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE): This metric assesses water consumption for supporting IT equipment, such as cooling water used by chillers. (WUE = Total water consumption / Total IT equipment energy consumption)
- Carbon Usage Effectiveness (CUE): This measures carbon emissions from electricity and fuel use in data centers. (CUE = Total emissions / Total IT equipment energy consumption)
Final Words
As we discussed it today, it’s critical to lower the PUE of a data center. To do so, one of the best techniques is to employ efficient cooling systems such as liquid immersion cooling, which is where BixBiT’s solutions shine.
The company’s immersion cooling system can be employed in diverse data centers and mining farms. Additionally, BixBiT delivers BixBiT Cell and BixBiT Rack for home, small, and medium-sized businesses, in addition to BixBiT Container for mining hotels, and COOLANT, the specific immersion liquid of the company.
