It was last estimated that in 2020, data centers comprised approximately 2% of total US electricity consumption, with an estimated annual growth rate of 4%. As our country increasingly relies on information technology (IT), our data centers (DCs) will need to increase their energy efficiency (EE) to stabilize their energy consumption. The task of studying EE in DCs is complicated by the interconnected nature of humans and mission-critical technical systems. Moreover, the literature tends to focus on technology solutions such as improvements to IT equipment, cooling infrastructure, and software, without addressing organizational and psychological drivers. Our research demystifies the complex interactions between humans and DCs, by asking What non-technical barriers impede EE investment decision-making and/or implementing energy management strategies? To begin to answer this question, we perform a literature review of 86 resources, ranging from peer-reviewed journal publications to handbooks. We also consider related fields such as organizational behavioral management and energy intensive buildings. We develop a public Zotero library, perform content coding, and complete a rudimentary network analysis. Our findings from the literature review suggest that (1) technological solutions are abundant in the literature but fall short of providing practical guidance on the pitfalls of implementation, (2) making energy efficiency a priority at the executive level of organizations will be largely ineffective if the IT and facilities staff are not directly incentivized to increase EE, and (3) there is minimal current understanding of how the individual psychologies of IT and facilities staff affect EE implementation in DCs. In the next phase of our research, we plan to interview data center operators/experts to ground-truth our literature findings and collaboratively design decarbonization policy solutions that target organizational structure, empower individual staff, and foster a supportive external market.
This report begins with a brief technical overview of motor technologies and some specific components and materials needed for their manufacture, followed by a supply chain analysis of emerging motor and drive technologies. The scope of this analysis includes electric motors for low to medium voltage (~1-1000 horsepower [hp]), industrial applications such as conveyors, extruders, pumps, compressors, blowers, refrigerators, and commercial heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC). These stationary industrial and commercial electric motors account for 29% of total U.S. electrical energy use (Rao et al. 2021). Heavy industrial applications, including those from extractive industries (e.g., liquid natural gas pipeline compressors), are outside the scope of this report. Much of this review discusses the key resource inputs of these technologies.A key resource input refers to the most difficult-to-source component of a given motor. The focus on these key resource inputs informs which links in the supply chain are weakest. Note that sometimes key resource inputs are critical materials 1 or their derivatives, such as is the case of rare-earth permanent magnets, but in other cases, such as electrical steel, they are not. This report consists of two sections: a technical overview (Section 1) and a supply chain analysis (Section 2). There is some redundancy, to ensure that Section 2 does not require an exhaustive reading of Section 1.
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