U.S. Army
Fort Knox, Data Center

Project Background: In 2019, CEG Solutions (CEG) completed a design-build ESPC project at Fort Knox that included numerous ECMs focused on the post’s mission-critical data center, one of only six Army Enterprise Data Centers (AEDCs) located in the continental United States. In order to mitigate the project’s impact on the Army’s ongoing computing operations, we focused our investigations on the data center’s cooling systems and worked closely with Fort Knox’s facilities and IT staff to ensure that our upgrades complied with federal cybersecurity protocols and ASHRAE data center standards. Ultimately, we identified a package of low-cost retrofits that will generate savings without impacting operational reliability or redundancy. As part of these equipment upgrades, we implemented the following measures:

• Convert constant speed computer room air handlers to variable speed (i.e., install new motors and drives) so that they vary operations to better match data center demand

• Deactivate unnecessary cooling equipment to be used only as a backup so that it no longer operates continuously

As a result of our efforts, the mechanical energy required to meet the Army’s data center cooling loads has decreased by more than 1.4 million kWh per year. Preliminary data indicates that the average data center PUE has decreased from ~1.5 to ~1.2 as a result of this project. Furthermore, the data center cooling capacity made available by our project will allow the Army to increase its IT loading and thus facilitate consolidation of other military data centers as desired in the future.