RagingWire Data Centers announced that its second data center in Sacramento, California, has earned the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Energy Star certification.
Its other Sacramento data center (CA1) became the first multi-tenant colocation facility to be awarded the certification in 2011. Combined, these two facilities contain over 500,000 sq ft of data center space and 54MW of critical IT power.
"Energy Star is a trusted seal of approval for environmental stewardship from the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of Energy, and we are proud to earn the award for our second data center in California," George Macricostas, the company’s chairman and CEO, said.
RagingWire said it took a holistic approach to improving efficiency and driving down energy consumption at the CA2 facility. For example, dynamic fan speed controls on computer room air and programmable logic controls (PLCs) match the cooling delivered to the data floor with the cooling required to maintain the cold-aisle intake temperature.
Increased waterside and airside economization is being used to drive down energy consumption with the electrical rooms being cooled 100% of the time by free outside air.
Additional energy savings were created by installing high-capacity adiabatic humidification units in place of traditional gas-fired steam humidifiers. These devices use heat from the air for evaporation, thus reducing air temperature and providing humidification.
RagingWire also teamed with their building automation system vendors to improve automatic controls for the chiller plant and computer room air handler units, resulting in an optimized cooling flow to the data room floor and increased overall cooling efficiency. Many of these energy efficiency measures had been proven first in the company’s other Sacramento data center.