Return on Investment

As a major provider of containment systems and data center infrastructure products, Polargy offers a wealth of expertise to help companies identify and capture energy savings. An engagement with Polargy will help take companies through the following steps to get to a compelling ROI:

• Assess the data center efficiency
• Design and implement a containment solution
• Calculate energy savings
• Prepare an energy incentive/rebate request
• Calculate the ROI

Savings Sources & Economic Benefits

PolarPlex™ Containment Systems, the PolarRack XG, and Polargy’s cooling accessories help separate hot and cold air, providing significant energy efficiency gains. With a complete containment solution, the following savings and benefits are available:

• By minimizing air mixing, and allowing the temperature difference between the supply and return air to increase, fan power can be reduced by as much as 75% without adverse affecting the server environmental conditions.
• Higher return air temperatures increase the capacity of CRAH units by 30% to 49%.
• With over capacity in most data centers, excess CRAC/CRAH units can simply be turned off.
• Raise the supply air temperature. Many data centers supply air at 55°F, but with containment, that could be increased substantially.
• Allow use of higher chilled water temperature, which would reduce the chiller plant energy use.
• Increase the number of operating hours when airside or water side economizer could be used.
• Careful separation of hot and cold aisles yields better uniformity of the supply air temperature at the server inlets, reducing reliability issues.
• Defer capital expenditures and extend the life of the data center as more server capacity is extracted from existing facilities.

Utility Company Rebates

Utility companies are attempting to reduce existing demand to meet new service requirements and are actively seeking ways to make their current customers more efficient. Power utilities or state energy efficiency programs may have available incentives that could potentially cover a portion of the cost to install PolarPlex™ Containment Systems, SynapSense™ Monitoring and Adaptive Control, and Polargy Cooling Accessories. There are currently over 80 energy efficiency incentive or rebate programs offered by local utilities or state energy efficiency programs in the United States alone. The criteria and acceptable projects will vary by program, but an increasing number of energy efficiency programs are recognizing hot/cold aisle containment projects for incentives or rebates.

Return on Investment

The combination of direct energy savings, deferred capital expenditures, and utility rebates give Polargy containment projects a positive ROI. The positive ROI, low upfront investment, and ease of installing Polargy Containment Solutions make the business case compelling. Polargy has experience in calculating and presenting business cases for its solutions and will bring this experience to its engagements.