JE Dunn + SmithGroupJJR completed this expansion to the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Laboratory of the Rockies South Table Mountain campus: the Energy System Integration Facility (ESIF). This design-build project consists of three buildings, each linked together under one roof: a three-story, 44,000-square-foot office building; a 37,000-square-foot data center; and a 84,000-square-foot high bay research laboratory. Also included are conference areas, visualization rooms, a break room, atrium lobby and a connector between the buildings. ESIF is a LEED Platinum certified building.
The high-performance computing and data center (HPCDC) expands the laboratory’s capabilities in modeling and simulation of renewable energy technologies and their integration into the existing energy infrastructure. The petaflop-scale (one petaflop equals one quadrillion floating-point operations per second) high-performance computer enables large-scale modeling and simulation of material properties, processes and fully integrated systems that is too expensive, too dangerous, or even impossible, to study by direct experimentation.
Not only is the HPCDC the fastest computing system dedicated to renewable energy technologies in the world, it is one of the most energy efficient data centers in the world operating at a power usage effectiveness (PUE) rating of 1.05 annual average.
JE Dunn + SmithGroupJJR completed this expansion to the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Laboratory of the Rockies South Table Mountain campus: the Energy System Integration Facility (ESIF). This design-build project consists of three buildings, each linked together under one roof: a three-story, 44,000-square-foot office building; a 37,000-square-foot data center; and a 84,000-square-foot high bay research laboratory. Also included are conference areas, visualization rooms, a break room, atrium lobby and a connector between the buildings. ESIF is a LEED Platinum certified building.
The high-performance computing and data center (HPCDC) expands the laboratory’s capabilities in modeling and simulation of renewable energy technologies and their integration into the existing energy infrastructure. The petaflop-scale (one petaflop equals one quadrillion floating-point operations per second) high-performance computer enables large-scale modeling and simulation of material properties, processes and fully integrated systems that is too expensive, too dangerous, or even impossible, to study by direct experimentation.
Not only is the HPCDC the fastest computing system dedicated to renewable energy technologies in the world, it is one of the most energy efficient data centers in the world operating at a power usage effectiveness (PUE) rating of 1.05 annual average.
Originally envisioned to achieve LEED Gold the project is on track for LEED Platinum. The office building boasts a highly calibrated envelope, various types of glazing systems to minimize the transmission of heat, daylighting harvesting and delivery devices, low velocity active chilled beams, and under floor air ventilation with operable windows and convection shafts. This resulted in a staggering low energy consumption rate (EUI) of 23.0 kBTU/sf/yr, which is 74% below the national average for office buildings.
The data center achieves a power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.04 and an energy usage effectiveness (EUE) of 0.7. For the laboratories the energy savings goals were set 30% below ASHRAE 90.1-2007.
Petascale (one million billion calculations per minute) computing in the Data Center enables large-scale modeling and simulation of material properties, processes, and fully integrated systems that would otherwise be too expensive, too dangerous, or even impossible to study by direct experimentation.
A key component to the mechanical design was an open plenum for conditioning the Data Center. Traditional under-floor air systems create a small plenum space between access floor and a slab on metal deck over structural steel framing. The design of this data center created a plenum to the mechanical room 16’ below the data center floor. To do this, the slab on metal deck was omitted and the access floor pedestals are welded directly to the top chord of steel joists.
A key element to the testing of power systems and components is the SCADA, which serves as the computer control system for the Research Electrical Distribution Bus (REDB). The REDB is the ultimate power integration circuit made up of two AC and two DC ring buses that connect multiple sources of energy and interconnect “plug-and-play” testing components in all the labs. The SCADA monitors and controls the REDB operations for safety and gathers real-time, high-resolution data for collaboration and visualization. In addition, the SCADA supports a large visualization screen in the control room allowing researchers and partners to watch the experiment in real-time. Researchers can see the electrical bus, close switches, checkout grid simulators as well as have the ability to control the systems on portions of the REBD that are checked out specifically to them.
