DCA Cooling Summit at the IMechE

In a slight change to standard DCA Networking events, the DCA Cooling Summit at the IMechE will provide an informal drinks evening where the Data Centre Cooling “Gurus” of the industry will provide an hour of thought provoking insight into this fast evolving aspect of data centres. Hopefully fuelling discussion on what the DCA Environmental Control group can achieve against a backdrop of general socialising, networking and good wine. 

Time: 18:00 – 21:30

Place: Manufacturing Room, Institution of Mechanical Engineers

1 Birdcage Walk

London

SW1H 9JJ

United Kingdom – MAP VIEW HERE

Agenda

18:00 Registration

18:30 Event Start

          Introduction – Simon Campbell-Whyte

Simon will introduce the DCA Cooling Summit at the IMechE and the potential role of the DCA Environmental Control Steering Group.

18:35 Dr. Jon Summers – The challenges of getting heat out of the data centre

Jon Summers is a senior lecturer in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Leeds and was a key contributor to the formation of the Data Centre Alliance in 2010. In the last three to four years Jon’s research teams at Leeds have focussed on a range of air flow, thermal management and energy efficiency projects within the Data Centre, HVAC and industrial sectors. Jon has also carried out extensive research in the areas of liquid cooling and other new innovations in the field of data centre cooling and thermal management. Since July 2013 Jon has also been leading the development of the “Joint Action Plan” for the data centre sector as part of the €1.7M EU Funded Pan European DCA project. 

Jon will discuss how the challenges of getting heat out of the data centre and the need to reduce the cooling infrastructure overhead is giving liquids a new lease of life. Four classifications of liquid cooling will be described including: phase change cooling (evaporative – many suppliers now), indirect liquid cooling, direct liquid cooling and then total liquid cooling (breaking the barriers between facilities and IT).

19:00 Sophia Flucker – Environmental control as the basis of energy efficiency

Sophia has worked as an engineering consultant on a variety of projects in several countries, delivering data centre design, commissioning and risk and energy assessments. She has worked alongside operations teams to help clients to manage their critical environments. Her experience includes developing low energy data centre cooling solutions, creating analytical and reporting tools, leading teams and business development. Sophia won the prize for Young Mission Critical Engineer of the Year at the Datacentre Awards 2007. She has been an active participant of various industry groups on data centre energy efficiency and has published and presented work in this area.

Sophia will discuss:

·  The impact of environmental control on energy efficiency and reliability

·  Environmental envelopes and trends

·  Operational optimisation to reduce energy consumption and cost

·  Best practice including air management and where to control

·  Free cooling opportunities

19:25 Dr. Robert Tozer – Energy efficiency improvements in a legacy data centre

Robert’s wide and extended experience in the Mission Critical Facilities industry working on design, reliability, energy efficiency and commissioning together with his academic achievements have provided him with the theoretical and practical tools to develop innovative solutions. These include free cooling designs, commissioning strategies, air management metrics and data centre energy assessment tools. He is author of over 40 papers on reliability and energy efficiency and refrigeration, has authored several patents on data centre free cooling designs, has written many white papers (in English and Spanish) and speaks regularly at Data Centre Dynamics conferences. In 2002 he was awarded the Institute of Refrigeration prize. He is a Visiting Fellow at South Bank University and has participated in many technical committees including ASHRAE, CIBSE, BREEAM, The Green Grid, European Code of Conduct and is Chairman of the DCA Environmental control Group.

Robert will present a case study that looks at the efforts made by a global financial services firm in their legacy facility to reduce PUE from 2.29 to 1.49, and will look at:

• The benefits of training operations teams in the whole data centre – providing them with a common language

• Providing teams with the theoretical knowledge to optimise their systems

• Implementing changes in a critical environment

• How to reduce an energy bill from $4.7million to $3million

• Identification of improvement opportunities using an energy assessment and data hall air temperature survey

• The need to improve air management before implementing system changes

• Opportunities for saving energy including: CRAH fan speeds, CRAH unit control strategy, data hall air and chilled water set points, free cooling, lighting loads and UPS system

19:50 Wrap-up & Feedback

20:00 Networking

21:30 End

With thanks to    for their kind support