Pepco Data Center Cooling, Power and Automation Upgrade

The challenge

Pepco Energy Services relied on its data center for facility information, metering, billing and other business-critical systems. The existing server room had temperature-control problems because its air-conditioning system served a wider office area and could not independently regulate the enclosed equipment space.

The infrastructure assessment also identified limited redundancy, fragmented electrical modifications and insufficient documentation. Pepco wanted a coordinated upgrade that would improve cooling control, system visibility and resilience during equipment or power failures.

Precision cooling and air distribution

The Tustin Group installed two computer-room air-conditioning units sized and positioned for the server equipment. The units included humidity alerts and online monitoring.

Because a raised-floor system was not practical in the existing room, Tustin designed a passive air-distribution approach that directed conditioned air to the server equipment while also supporting occupant comfort.

Power resilience and facility risk controls

The project’s power-resilience design used uninterruptible power supplies with approximately 20 minutes of battery capacity during the transition to an onsite diesel generator. Alerting and online monitoring provided visibility into UPS operating conditions.

Pepco separately completed IT and electrical work that included dual power-feed paths, additional network switches, server racks and smart power-distribution equipment. This work remains identified as Pepco’s responsibility rather than being attributed entirely to Tustin.

Integrated monitoring and remote diagnostics

Tustin Energy Solutions designed and installed an automation system that was incorporated into the facility’s existing chiller-plant platform. Operators could review rack temperatures, room conditions, cooling equipment and UPS status from a central interface.

Each server rack had three temperature zones feeding real-time data to the monitoring system. Alarm notifications and remote diagnostics gave the operations team visibility that the source says was not previously available.

A more controllable server-room layout

Tustin Construction Services coordinated the walls and doors for a reconfigured 800-square-foot server room. The smaller, more controlled layout reduced the amount of space requiring precision conditioning. Pepco also separated its metering and billing systems from plant operations so plant maintenance or a plant-side outage would be less likely to interrupt data collection.