I thought I’d provide a few highlights from what I learned and heard at the ASHRAE 2012 Winter meeting in Chicago.
ASHRAE has gone through some rebranding, including a new logo & tagline: Shaping Tomorrow’s Built Environment Today.
Of data center interest: Technical Committee 9.9 (http://tc99.ashraetcs.org/) had two meetings at the conference; for more information it may be easiest to contact each voting member to ask questions:
- Sunday, January 22 – Program, Handbook, & Research
- N. Gangemi outlined some key dates for submissions to present papers and seminars for future meetings:
- Feb 13 – Seminar submissions due for San Antonio (June 2012)
- April ~18 – Conference paper abstracts and full technical papers due for Winter Conference 2013
- June ~3 – Seminar submissions due for Winter Conference 2013
- C. Kurkjian gave a short briefing on the handbook going to continuous annual updates for the online version. Volunteers to help with the handbook are always appreciated.
- M. Patterson and the research subcommittee walked through a few items as they relate with working with other technical groups, including TC 4.10.
- Monday, January 23 – All other topics
- J. Glass gave introductions and talked about how best to leverage the increasing membership of TC9.9.
- R. Pavlak introduced a working group from Standard 90.1; this group heard about the number of concerns between TC9.9 and the 90.1 mechanical working group subcommittee. Several points were made to move things forward for future inclusion of TC9.9 regarding the data center spaces included in 90.1. J. Glass and R. Pavlak would appreciate volunteers to help with inter-committee communication.
- R. Steinbrecher walked through a TC 9.9 white paper on revised thermal guidelines as part of the IT subcommittee report.
- D. Quirk discussed issues of NFPA with data centers.
- N. Gangemi relayed information and asked for future topics to be submitted, keeping in mind the dates needed for each of the future ASHRAE meetings (above).
- M. Patterson gave an overview on PUE and the step-by-step process to agree on a standard definition (Green Grid).
- J. Bean provided a brief trend of the data center industry.
- R. Johnson gave an update on the EU Code of Conduct and conveyed that in certain places the codes were rather lax.
- D. Beaty talked about the publications subcommittee progress – further details on new and revised books can be discussed with him.
- R. Schmidt gave the results and observations on contamination.
- M. Patterson gave a brief summary of the research discussions held the day prior.
- J. Rutt provided a short review of SPC-189 with a few items to be discussed as potential data center concerns at a later time.
Additionally it should be noted that the Standard 90.1 committee approved a measure to allow PUE to be used as a means of energy compliance. This will likely be up for public review in a few months. This will be an important piece to track, as it may be introduced in future versions of LEED and other energy standards.
Monday, January 23 – All other topics
