Savvis – Thomas Potier – 2010

Goals

Thomas Potier worked at a datacenter operated by Savvis in Seattle. Savvis, headquartered in St. Louis, Mo., is among the leaders of the data center industry with 20 facilities in the U.S. and 31 locations worldwide. The company brought in Potier to uncover energy savings.

Solutions

Potier worked with the Central Engineering Team at Savvis to identify energy savings across their facilities. Sorting through the projects with the biggest impact, Potier determined that two sets of projects would provide large savings. The first group encompassed the HVAC system efficiencies. The second set, focused on air flow management, proposed solutions to improve use of the cold air flow such as hot-cold aisles enclosing, sealing leaks and enabling variable airflow.

Potential Impact

Potier estimated that if Savvis were to implement the airflow management projects it would save around 80 GWh, or $6 million every year. Adding the HVAC efficiency improvement projects would increase the yearly energy savings by around 3 GWh or $200,000, and these projects could reduce CO2 emissions by 37,500 metric tons.