Energy Management

Raise the temperature, lower the costs with Fresh Air

You know the catch-22. You pay to power your data center, then you pay to dissipate the heat from the very same power. New environmental regulations and rising energy costs require you to eke out the utmost performance from every watt of energy, and spend less money to do so. At Dell, we've seen this issue coming and we've met it with cutting-edge research and development.

Our systems have been developed for sustained operation at temperature ranges from minus 23°F (5°C) to 113°F (45°C) and allowable humidity from 5 percent to 90 percent. This level of design robustness has been validated by recent tests indicating that the components can tolerate up to 900 hours of 104°F (40°C) operation per year and up to 90 hours at 113°F (45°C).

We call this Fresh Air. And you can call it peace of mind, because these tolerances not only save you money, but they also give you assurance during data center cooling-system-failure events that your data is safe.

Deploying Dell servers, storage units or network switches with Fresh Air capability gives you greater flexibility for the operational temperature in the data center, a best practice that can help increase energy efficiency and decrease operational costs. This can result in more than $100,000 of operational savings per megawatt (MW) of IT per year. In some climates, the capital cost to build a chiller plant as part of the data center facility can be eliminated altogether, resulting in capital expenditure savings of approximately $3 million per MW of IT2.

What could you do at 45°C?

  • Operate your data center with greater efficiency
  • Reduce maintenance/infrastructure costs
  • Lower energy consumption and your utility bill
  • Meet corporate mandates for greener operations
  • Reduce risk in the event of cooling failure in your data center
  • Operate a chiller-less or Fresh Air cooling facility for increased energy efficiency

Dell data center technologies with Fresh Air capability allow for aggressive improvements in energy consumption and the resulting operational costs, even in data centers that have already been economized with respect to cooling. The total Fresh Air solution, with thermal, reliability and system engineering fully validated, is based on advanced engineering and design.

1 "Chiller-less Facilities: They May Be Closer Than You Think," David Moss, et al., June 2011,
2 Savings assume $0.07 per KW/hr and/or $.20 per KW/hr CapEx and OpEx savings per megawatt of IT equipment

 

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Dell PowerEdge Power and Cooling Fresh Air Video

Shrink your costs and carbon footprint with the Dell Fresh Air data center solution, which leverages 12th generation PowerEdge servers that can run at temperatures up to 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).

Learn more about the Dell Fresh Air Solution.

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