What a lower PUE
is worth.
Annual energy and cost saved by lowering PUE, for your IT load and your power price.
Annual facility cost at the current PUE is 1,051,200 USD, and 735,840 USD at the target.
The target is above the current PUE, so nothing is saved.
kWh saved = IT kW × 8,760 × (current − target). PUE bands from this site's Mining-to-AI guide.
The same sum, run on paper
Take the defaults. A 1,000 kW IT load at PUE 1.5 draws 1,000 × 8,760 × 1.5, which is 13,140,000 kWh a year from the grid. The same load at PUE 1.05 draws 9,198,000 kWh. The difference is 3,942,000 kWh, and at 0.08 USD per kWh that difference is worth 315,360 USD a year.
Air vs liquid, on the record
| Property | Air cooling | Liquid cooling |
|---|---|---|
| PUE range | 1.3 to 1.6, typical | 1.03 to 1.2 in the right conditions |
| kW per rack | Tops out around 15 to 20 | Required above ~20 |
| Where the overhead goes | Fans and air handling | Pumps and CDUs |
Sourced from the Mining-to-AI guide on this site. The density side of the same question lives in the rack density calculator.
The fine print
What counts as IT load?
The power the compute itself draws, meaning servers, storage and network gear. PUE divides total facility energy by that number, so everything else on the meter, cooling, distribution losses and lighting, is the overhead the ratio measures.
Where does 8,760 come from?
It is the number of hours in a year, 24 times 365. Annualising a continuous load is a multiplication by hours, and data center loads run continuously.
Why does the PUE input stop at 1.0?
PUE is facility energy divided by IT energy, and facility energy includes the IT energy, so the ratio cannot go below 1. The lowest liquid figure this site cites is 1.03.