Wayne State University, New Data Center - Detroit, MI - Part Two

Horizon Engineering Associates (HEA) was contracted by Wayne State University to provide commissioning services for the university’s new data center building. In the first part Glenn discussed the project as a whole and the purposed of the project, in this part Glenn will discuss the challenges and the success of the project. If you have not read the first section click here.

Q/A with Glenn Cattell – Regional Director

What was the biggest challenge faced during this project and how was HEA able to navigate through any problems faced due to this challenge?

The biggest problem HEA faced during this project was getting the DCIM (Data Center Infrastructure Management) points communicating and reading accurately and bringing in the proper points. The DCIM is a combination of the EMS (Energy Management System) and the BMS (Building Management System). The DCIM had multiple equipment status errors, summary log errors or missing summary logs, alarm errors or missing alarms, and points not reading properly such as space temperature and space humidity.

HEA worked with the design engineer, the client and DCIM contractor to navigate what points are important and are necessary to allow the cient to operate the building effectively and efficiently. Once these points were acquired, HEA assisted the DCIM contractor in fixing the issues that were found and ensured all the points were operating properly.

What do you think the success of this project shows about the qualities of HEA?

Completion of this project show HEA is capable of delivering a quality Mission Critical project to our clients. During this project the HEA team was able to demonstrate the 7 core key values of HEA, “ACE IS QI”. Using these core values HEA was able to identity numerous issues, offer resolutions to those issues and offer recommendations to further run the building more efficiently.

Were there any lessons learned during this project that you believe can be applied to future projects to make them even more successful?

Commissioning Agent should do Systems training for all systems (Chill Water Systems, Electrical Distribution System, HVAC systems, etc). Owner training typically just goes over the individual equipment with the contractors but does not involve a systems training. This systems training should be implanted to prevent any possible issues. An example would be to go over the air distribution and pressurization system. The air distribution and pressurization system contains multiple setpoints that can be adjusted by the operator. If the operate sets the pressures too low, the racks may not get enough cooling and if set too high the system will not operate at the same efficiency. All of these potential issues could be avoided with proper system training with the operators.