In a recent webinar, Improving Data Center Availability with Process Instrumentation, Emerson’s Lars Vogel, Industry Manager for Building Automation, and Mathias Gehl, Project Pursuit Manager Europe, examined how early engineering decisions and non-intrusive measurement technology shape data center availability. Their session offered practical guidance for project teams who want fewer surprises during construction and steadier operation over the long run.

Why It Matters

Availability is the metric that matters most to data center operators, and as Mathias explained, it is influenced long before a facility goes live. Choices made during planning determine how easily a site can be commissioned, maintained, and scaled, while delivery delays and instrument mismatches push schedules and budgets in the wrong direction. Non-intrusive measurement adds another layer of resilience by eliminating the need to cut, drain, or shut down piping during meter installation or service. Together, early engagement and clamp-on technology give project teams a more predictable path from design through years of operation.

Key Takeaways

• Emerson serves as a single instrumentation point of contact, covering flow, pressure, temperature, level, and liquid analysis across cooling, IT, backup power, and tank systems.
• Engaging during pre-FEED (pre-Front-End Engineering Design) aligns instrument selection with I/O planning, maintenance strategy, and redundancy decisions before changes become expensive.
• Emerson manufactures instrumentation for Europe in Scotland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, and Romania to keep supply chains short and local.
• Flexim ultrasonic clamp-on flow meters are installed on the outside of the pipe, so commissioning and maintenance do not interrupt the process, and no bypasses or isolation valves are required.
• The Flexim FLUXUS F731 TE two-channel meter measures chilled water and condenser or tower water simultaneously, with integrated thermal energy calculation for water and water-glycol mixtures.
• Flexim FLUXUS WD and TE meters meet the measurement requirements of the EU (European Union) Delegated Act 2024/1364 and the EN 50600-4-9 standard for water usage effectiveness.

Availability Starts in Pre-FEED

Mathias opened the session by reframing availability as a planning problem rather than only an operations problem. He noted that instrumentation conversations rarely begin early in data center projects, even though other industries treat pre-FEED as the right time to align instrument selection with I/O planning, maintenance strategy, and redundancy choices.

Locking these decisions in early reduces late-stage changes, which Mathias described as the most expensive kind. During the FEED (Front-End Engineering Design) phase, Emerson develops measurement specifications point by point, asking whether each location prioritizes accuracy, cost, or availability, and producing a model-coded list that supports accurate cost planning and clear handoff to teams that were not part of the original selection.

One Contact Point Across the Portfolio

As a one-stop instrumentation supplier, the portfolio covers safety and electrical equipment, test systems, control software, control and isolation valves, and a full suite of instrumentation. About 20 percent of the world’s power generation uses Emerson technology, and three of the five largest data center operators deploy Emerson systems.

For project teams, the practical benefit is a single point of ownership from PO through delivery and startup, including procurement of items outside Emerson’s own catalog. That ownership extends to coordinating with owner-operators, EPCs, integrators, and OEMs, providing the project with a single point of contact whenever attention is needed.

Non-Intrusive Flow Measurement for Cooling Systems

Flexim FLUXUS F731 TE – Heat and Cold Metering in any Environment

Lars then turned to one of the most critical subsystems in any data center: cooling. The Flexim brand has supplied ultrasonic clamp-on flow measurement for more than 30 years. The meter consists of a transmitter and two transducer heads mounted on a rail outside the pipe. It sends ultrasonic signals with and against the flow, measures the time difference, and uses that delta to calculate flow velocity, volume flow, thermal energy, or mass flow. Because the meter never touches the medium, the pipe is never opened, and the process never has to be stopped for installation or service. Lars said the system has been built for more than 10 years of uninterrupted field operation.

For chiller and heat exchanger monitoring, the FLUXUS F731 TE measures two flow channels and four temperature inputs, providing thermal energy values for the chilled-water side and the condenser or tower water side. Integrated energy calculation for water and water-glycol mixtures eliminates the need for a separate energy computer.

On main cooling lines, where pipe sizes can reach 1,000 millimeters or more for Hyperscalers, the clamp-on approach eliminates the bypasses and isolation valves that an inline meter would require, reducing engineering effort, material costs, hardware weight, and rooftop space. The meters also handle disturbance correction down to about two pipe diameters of the inlet section, based on empirical work Emerson’s Flexim team completed with PTB (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt), the national metrology institute of Germany.

A Frankfurt Project and EU Delegated Act Compliance

Lars described a Frankfurt project with N+1 redundancy across several buildings. The EPC initially planned inline meters and considered clamp-on only for the largest DN500 lines for cost reasons. After reviewing the advantages, including no bypasses, no isolation valves, lower weight, and shorter lead times, the team switched to clamp-on for all pipe sizes. The result was direct savings in hardware, simpler engineering, and easier on-site handling, without the need for heavy-lifting equipment on the rooftop.

The webinar closed with EU Delegated Act 2024/1364, which has been in force since March 2024, requiring data center operators with at least 500 kilowatts of installed IT capacity to monitor and report on sustainability indicators, including total water input, total potable water input, and waste heat reuse, measured in accordance with EN 50600.

Lars walked through the EN 50600-4-9 requirements for water usage effectiveness. They confirmed that Flexim FLUXUS WD and TE  meters satisfy them: dedicated water flow measurement, field accuracy of 1 percent (laboratory calibration accuracy of 0.3 percent), factory calibration with certificates, Advanced Meter Verification for ongoing health checks, internal data logging configurable to 15-minute intervals, and BMS (Building Management System) interfaces including M-Bus, BACnet, Modbus, and Ethernet.

Explore Non-Intrusive Measurement

Project and operations teams planning new builds or retrofits can review Emerson’s full non-intrusive measurement portfolio to see how clamp-on technology can support availability, sustainability, and compliance goals.