The estimated load is a value used by the system to calculate how much capacity is used to be able to calculate and guide you on how much capacity is available.
By default estimated load calculations are based on adjusted nameplate values. However, they can be different depending on the power information available to the system in each rack and the power capacity strategy you have selected as the main strategy in Preferences > Power Capacity.
The values and graphics in the Power overlay illustrate how close your estimated load is to the breaker capacity or design limit based on your predefined thresholds.
See the introduction to the different strategies below to learn how they work and see the consequences of each strategy to the calculation of your estimated load here.
Adjusted nameplate
You can reduce the manufacturer's nameplate value to the adjusted value when you know the actual power consumption of the product and allow the system to perform more precise calculations. The adjusted nameplate value is more precise than the manufacturer's nameplate as it is the actual known peak power draw of a server rather than the maximum load that the manufacturer guarantees the server will not exceed. If the system doesn't have this value available, it will fall back on the manufacturer's nameplate.
Use the adjusted nameplate strategy when you know the adjusted nameplate values of your equipment and you want more precise calculations than what the manufacturer's nameplate enables you to get (less pessimistic). The adjusted nameplate values must be entered manually in the equipment's property settings.
If the system does not know about the phase connections, it will assume the server draws the load on all phases in a 3-phase setup and triple the load to ensure the UPS/PDU can handle the load. To avoid this, configure how the servers are connected to the rack PDUs.
Predicted power
Power capacity calculations based on measured peak data from DCE or other external system integrations allow the system to predict power based on already collected measurements. You can customize the default implementation of 30 days trending and fixed minimum and maximum values (Preferences > External Systems > Measurement Trending).
Use the predicted power strategy if you have measured power values from your equipment and you want the capacity calculations to be based on the measured values rather than nameplate values.
See more about predicted power here.
Contracted power (colo)
The contracted power for the rack is distributed on the rack PDUs or receptacles and used as estimated load. The contracted power is defined in the Colo overlay.
You cannot actively select this strategy in the system. It is used if you are a colocation provider and you haven't set up connected equipment with measured values from the contracted equipment.
Thresholds in Preferences > Power Capacity allow you to define the percentage of the contracted power to be used as estimated load.
