Case Study for the SRA: Federal Agency

2010-12-23

The United States Social Security Administration (SSA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that administers Social Security, a social insurance program consisting of retirement, disability, and survivors’ benefits. The agency has 10 regional offices (of which Richmond is one).

In its Strategic Sustainability Plan, June 2010, the SSA set a greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goal of 21 percent through 2020. Air conditioning is a large part of the agencies consumption of electricity.

With this in mind the agency engaged Power Knot to treat a computer room air conditioning (CRAC) unit. Power Knot treated the system with its Synthetic Refrigerant Additive. We monitored the power before and after treatment.

After treatment, the system was supplying colder air, so it turned on for less time. This resulted in lower power consumption overall for the system:
The net effect is an improvement in efficiency of 15%.

CRAC unit in the SSA network room (made by Data Aire)

The net effect is an improvement in efficiency of 15%.