ALL THINGS GREEN
to continuous water contact, cooling plant has been seen to suffer from in creased
degradation, putting strain on OPEX costs too. Water-side optimisation Water-side optimisation
Having recognised the need for cooling systems that provide something close to the efficiencies that can be achieved with adiabatic cooling, but with a more sensitive approach to water conservation, Airedale developed an innovative approach to data centre cooling that takes the philosophy behind air-side optimisation and evolves it further. Airedale call this water-side optimisation, and it is proving its worth in many of the world’s leading data centres already.
The philosophy of water-side optimisation is based on taking an optimised air environment and looking at what other variables can be adjusted in order to deliver more free-cooling. Assuming that the air within the data centre w hite space stays at the same temperature, the next step was to reduce the approach temperature whilst opening the difference between water supply and water return. Implementing innovations within the plant equipment means the supply and return air
remain as before, but supply and return water temperatures are higher, thus the approach temperature is reduced. We see a fixed temperature difference of 12°C TD on the air side with the fluid side being opened out to 10°C and the approach temperature closing from 6°C to 4°C.
The features of this approach are: ■ Higher cooling surface area:
To achieve this, free-cooling chillers are matched to large surface area chilled water coils in either indoor CRAC units or fan walls. The air path is simplified using hot aisle containment, creating a pressure differential that draws cool air through the servers and out of the white space via ducts and back to the air conditioning plant via a common plenum. The air is introduced directly to the space via side wall diffusion, minimisin g air s ide pressure drops.
■ The benefits of this are: ■ Less mechanical cooling meaning more ■ Lower fan speeds meaning more efficient
efficient chiller operation. indoor unit operation.
■ Lower pump power meaning more efficient water transfer.
■ Large coil surface leads to increased cooling for less footprin t (more cooling capacity per m).
This is all managed with an intelligent controls platform that monitors fluctuating demand within the white space and dynamically operates the system at its most efficient operating point.
Based on average temperatures for London, an extra 2°C creates many more hours of free cooling. 14% more free cooling (59% in total) can be achieved with water-side optimisation, with all but 1% of the rest of the year being covered by concurrent cooling (a combination of free cooling and mechanical), giving huge benefits in terms of chiller efficiency. This system could provide free cooling for over 50% of the year in all of Europe’s major data centre hubs (London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris, Dublin).
Airedale’s water-side optimisation solution is in operation across Europe, offering considerable efficiencies. The graph below demonstrates this performance and how it can benefit the end user whilst minimising the impact on the environment.
Petra 33
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