Liquid Web Continues Drive with Energy Efficiency

Posted on by Scott Haraburda | Updated:
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Lansing, MI., Mar. 9th, 2022  -  Liquid Web has been presented with the “Million Kilowatt Hour Efficiency Partner” Award for the third, consecutive year. This is, in part, due to the PACE program that allowed the installation of highly efficient HVAC systems, but so much more is involved.

In 2018, Liquid Web started the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) project. This allowed us to replace the old, inefficient HVAC units at our largest data center in Lansing with a modern, energy-efficient system that takes advantage of Michigan’s climate to help reduce energy consumption.  

The project ended in March 2020, but the fine-tuning had just begun. “It’s a multi-faceted approach for continuous improvement of energy efficiency,” said Scott Haraburda, Sr. Director of Facilities at Liquid Web. “When the PACE install was complete, other projects such as fine tuning temperature sensor data, detailing rack isolation, raising the data center temperature, and examining the overall load were well underway.” In fact, fine tuning and isolation work at all Liquid Web data centers continues today because as new servers and equipment are installed, the data center evolves over time. “It takes a dedicated Facilities Team, like ours at Liquid Web, to ensure proper HVAC management,” Haraburda continued. 

In the time since the PACE project ended, Liquid Web has completed a number of energy efficiency-related projects such as replacing old Uninterruptible Power Systems (UPS) with modern units, resulting in 26% efficiency gains and an increase in the temperature of all data centers. In addition, many other HVAC and electrical projects continue to drive efficiency. These projects are very much the type of ‘behind the scenes’ work that our data center teams do every day. “With every project, we look for ways to eliminate single points of failure and improve the overall end result, which is uptime for our customers. We worry about the power and cooling, so they don’t have to. This mentality is carried through all the teams that operate in the data center,”  Haraburda said.

Constant collaboration with teams such as Facilities, Networking, DCO, Purchasing, Product, and Engineering resulted in equipment being properly designed and not being over or undercooled, which would waste energy.  Data Center Teams also have a more holistic understanding of the systems involved with operating modern, efficient data centers.  

As Liquid Web looks to 2022 and beyond, planning continues for increased density, better server hardware, elimination of power-hungry equipment and practices, and much more continuous improvement from all teams involved.  

About Liquid Web

Building on 25 years of success, our Liquid Web Family of Brands delivers software, solutions, and managed services for mission-critical sites, stores, and applications to SMBs and the designers, developers, and agencies who create for them. Liquid Web (Managed Hosting), Nexcess (Digital Commerce Cloud), and StellarWP (WordPress Software and Tools) have more than 500,000+ sites under management, over 100,000 software subscribers, and 2 million+ free version software users. Collectively, the companies have assembled a world-class team of industry experts, provide unparalleled service from solution engineers available 24/7/365, and own and manage ten global data centers. As an industry leader in customer service, the rapidly expanding brand family has been recognized among INC. Magazine’s 5000 Fastest-Growing Companies for 12 years. Learn more about the Liquid Web Family of Brands.

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