Resource World Magazine

a lT Er N aT i v E EN ER g y R E Vi EW Developments in Alternative Energy hP AND iNteL teAM tO CreAte AN eNerGYeFFiCieNt DAtA CeNter The US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has selected Hewlett Packard Company [HPQ-NYSE] and Intel Corporation [INTC-Nasdaq] to provide a new, energyefficient, high performance, computer (HPC) system dedicated to energy systems integration, renewable energy research, and energy efficiency technologies. The new centre will provide additional computing resources to support the breadth of research at NREL, leading to increased efficiency and lower costs for research into clean energy technologies including solar photovoltaics, wind energy, electric vehicles, buildings technologies, and renewable fuels. "This unique capability sets NREL apart in our ability to continue ground-breaking research and analysis," NREL Director, Dan Arvizu, said. "In partnership with HP and Intel, NREL is acquiring one of the most energy efficient, high performance, computer systems in the world for our research." The HPC data center at NREL will have an annualized average power use effectiveness (PUE) rating of 1.06 or better. The average data center operates with a PUE of 1.91, according to 2009 data from the Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star Program. NREL's data center design is compact, resulting in short runs for both electrical and plumbing components. This project features a technology, under development, that uses warm water in the computing rack to efficiently cool the servers. The waste heat from the computer system will be used as the primary heat source in the offices and lab space. Excess heat can also be exported to adjacent 58 www.resourceworld.com buildings and other areas of the NREL campus. "The industry is more and more cognizant of the amount of energy being used in our nation's data centers," NREL Computational Science Center Director, Steve Hammond, said. "NREL's new HPC data center in the ESIF will set the standard for sustainable and energy efficient computing. The data center will have a world-leading PUE and reuse nearly all waste heat generated. Most data centers do only one or the other, not both." "Research on renewable energy and new energy sources are the areas that are aimed to address humanity's biggest challenges and will impact literally everyone on the globe. Our collaboration with HP and NREL is also bringing computer architecture and system cooling to accelerate innovation in more efficient use of energy critical for achieving exascale (how many calculations a supercomputer can carry out each second) performance by the end of the decade," Stephen Wheat, general manager of High Performance Computing at Intel said. NREL is the US Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. Visit NREL online at www. nrel.gov sCieNtists DeVeLOP MOre ACCurAte WiND eNerGY FOreCAsts The German government has decided to phase out nuclear energy power and to increase wind energy power production. But, to run a wind farm as efficiently as possible, planners must know in advance precisely what wind speeds and what kind of turbulence can be expected at the site. "There is still immense potential inland that remains untapped, such as in the low mountain ranges," says Tobias Klaas, sci- by Jane Bratun entist at the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy and Energy System Technology (IWES) in Kassel. Klaas is also the head of the "Inland Wind Energy Use" research project sponsored by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment. "With conventional methods, it is almost impossible, or possible only with great effort and expense, to measure projected power when planning modern, large-scale facilities," says Klaas. Forests and hills hamper the analysis of wind conditions. Experts refer to this aspect as "complex terrain," where topography influences wind conditions, even at great heights. Klass and his colleagues have erected a 200-metre mast, Europe's tallest wind-energy measuring mast, on a treecovered hill not far from Kassel, and have been taking wind and turbulence measurements, and gathering additional meteorological data. Scientists know little about the dynamics of wind conditions at that height. "Indeed, there are theories about how wind speed increases with height, yet these no longer apply at such great heights. Hence, actual measurement values are needed to further develop the models," explains Klaas. For instance, trees decelerate ground-level winds and create turbulence. It was previously impossible to draw readily available conclusions about conditions in the upper regions based on these data. Thanks to the Fraunhofer measuring mast, this upper region research can now be done. Using ultrasound anemometers (special wind gauges), it records, in spatial terms, how fast and in which direction the wind is blowing, thereby rendering a precise depiction of the turbulence. Conventional vane anemometers establish wind speed and direction at various heights. They additionally measure other NOVEMBER 2012

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