Vermont Mutual Insurance to save electric costs with cooling system upgrade

Kilawatt Technologies and Vermont Mutual Insurance Group have announced the results of the energy evaluation of their data center at their Montpelier building. Vermont Mutual retained Kilawatt Technologies to evaluate a re-configured cooling system. As part of this assessment Kilawatt evaluated the total energy consumption of the data center; including both the IT load and the Cooling Load, calculated the Power Utilization Effectiveness (PUE), and generated the simple return on investment of the cooling system modifications.
The Energy Evaluation indicated that approximately 50 percent of the energy consumed in the data center is dedicated to cooling. For every 1 kW-Hour used for data processing, 1 kW-Hour is expended to cool the data center. Further the data center load constituted more than half of the total electricity building energy load.
The evaluation of the cooling system modifications have confirmed that 50 percent of the cooling load will be eliminated, providing a return on investment of approximately three years at the current rate structure. Given that energy costs are increasing, this is a conservative estimate.
By proceeding with the proposed cooling system modifications, the PUE for the data center will improve from 2.0 to 1.5, reducing cooling load from 50 percent to 33 percent of total data energy use. These results will be achieved by a restructuring of the air management system; no HVAC equipment will be added or replaced.
Background
Vermont Mutual Insurance Group has been providing comprehensive insurance solutions to families and businesses throughout New England and the State of New York since 1828. With a focus on quality, stability, and competitive marketing, Vermont Mutual Insurance Group is committed to protecting the financial security of your home, automobile, property, inland marine, and personal and commercial insurance interests. To learn more about the tailored protection and services Vermont Mutual Insurance Group offers, visit www.vermontmutual.com.
Kilawatt Technologies founded in 2008, provides a data-centric, statistically-based, energy and environment management program. The methods involve continuous trending and analysis of energy and interior environmental data for commercial, multi-family and industrial buildings.
Source: Kilawatt. 9.6.2012