In August 2013 TGAG held a one-day Schematic Design Review Charrette for a new data centre, supported by Singapore’s National Environment Agency’s Design for Efficiency scheme. The charrette was aimed to identify and agree on solutions to reduce upfront CAPEX and ongoing OPEX annual costs without compromising the high standards expected of a mission critical facility.
The key recommendations for this new data centre were as follows:
- Replace CRACs with BU-AHUs
- Eliminate Raised floor, sprinklers and water leak detection system, etc.
- Require containment of hot aisles as per TIA942 – Tier 4 August 2012 standards
- Do NOT specify Auxiliary AHUs to provide additional cooling capacity
Through the recommended measures above, Client was expected to achieve savings of at least:
- S$ 13 million in CAPEX at the outset
- S$ 10.5 million in OPEX per annum (based on 2,500W/m2)
The above changes would allow the facility to be marketed as the “greenest” data centre in Singapore (possibly the most efficient/lowest PUE in SE Asia). Estimated PUE of 1.26 if key recommendations were followed.
Other highlights from the result of this charrette were the possibility of:
- 11% increase in lettable floor area
- 33% increase in number of racks/floor
- Extra floor to building and greater GFA/floor
- Future proofing—power density
The team involved were Vinod Kesava, Eng Lock Lee, Huston Eubank, Prof David Strong, Simon Thomas, Kes Shotam, Bradley T. Gardner, Carolyn Kenwrick and Ciara Shannon.