“I just thought I’d let you know that we got the Polargy doors and top panels installed today, and saw an immediate drop of about 8-10 F in the cold aisle.”
Cold Aisle Containment
Quick Wins Are Always Nice
Category Archives: ROI Case Studies
Canada Keeps Cool
In 2011 Polargy installed a Cold Aisle Containment System for the Government of Canada. Below is a note and photos from the Data Center Manager who is a very satisfied customer.
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Good Morning Cary,
I only have good things to say about your product. It solved our cooling issues in a snap!!!
We only went with your product after studying all alternative. One main feature of your product is the simplicity of the system and the ease to work with it during installation (minutes) and when maintenance have to be perform in the Data Center where the top panels have to be moved around. It proved such a success with all our staff. For the one concern about aesthetic, well the design is pretty slick if you ask me.
I don’t have the official tally from the CRAC units but my first investigation show that we are now saving more then 50% from our past cooling needs.
As we continue our expansion, you will hear from us in the future
Sincerely
Louis Hall
Moncton Data Centre / Centre Informatique de Moncton
Infrastructure Services / Services d’infrastructure
Innovation, Information and Technology / Innovation, information et technologie
Human Resources and Skills Development Canada / Ressources humaines et Développement des compétences Canada
Government of Canada / Gouvernement du Canada
Government of Canada Cold Aisle Containment
Government of Canada Inside Cold Aisle Containment Pod
Xcel Energy’s $169,000 Rebate Check
What a great outcome, the CFO must be thrilled.
Big Fat Rebate Check
This cold aisle containment project enjoyed pure simplicity.
The site, near Denver, was purpose built so Xcel Energy could just take a before and after meter reading for the entire building. The IT load did not really change over the course of the project, so the reduction was attributed to the shutting off of 39 CRAC units out of 70 units running. This reduction was measured at 435kW, or about 11kW per CRAC unit. These CRAC units were the old AirFlow brand and the per unit reduction was higher than anticipated but we double checked the meter readings and verified the constant IT load (via the UPS) to confirm the numbers.
Old Airflow CRAC Badge
The containment was a combination of cold aisle containment, under floor partitions, and CRAC unit extensions. PUE before was 2.0, after it was 1.8.
Polargy helped calculate the ROI. The project’s net costs were $400K ($569K less $169K). The 435kW savings yielded $225K annually (power rate is about 6 cents per kWh). This results in a project payback period of 1.6 years.
Pixar’s “Ridiculous” ROI on Cold Aisle Containment
Jay (now at Twitter) presented Pixar’s results from Polargy’s Cold Aisle Containment installation. This is a simple and compelling story on containment’s ease of implementation and rapid ROI.