A study on energy efficiency in system development environments and related equipment

Abstract: The modern society and its basic functions are dependent on different type of energy carriers. The usage of electronic appliances and computers in particular, has varying impact on energy usage, which in turn influence the performance of the cooling systems and the experienced thermal climate conditions in buildings. This study analyzes the energy usage within system development environments at Saab facility in Järfälla. The work process was divided in two parts; identifying the current energy consumption level in the system development environments and investigating potential energy efficiency measures that can be implemented. An evaluation on the defined energy systems showed that computer labs and related equipment as well as components associated with the cooling system used 64 % of the total energy demand in D building at Saab´s facility. Based on these results, several energy efficiency measures are proposed that would have significant potential to reduce the current energy usage and generate economic savings with low or no impact on the business activities and indoor thermal conditions. One of the most important findings was that the usage patterns of computers and monitors have a considerable contribution to the heat loads. It was shown that improved power management in computers placed in the system development environment could decrease the total energy consumption of cooling and electricity by 569 MWh per year. A final analysis emphasizes the importance of the location of the system development environments, as this factor is highly significant for an efficient reduction of the cooling demand in the existing building.