Cooling

Cooling solution launched to enable greener data centres

ST Engineering has announced the launch of its new Airbitat DC Cooling System, marking its entry into the data centre cooling market. The Airbitat DC Cooling System delivers powerful pre-cooling for tropical data centres, achieving annual net energy savings of more than 20% over conventional chiller systems alone. This translates to annual energy savings of about $104 per kW of heat load. Combined with existing chiller systems, the Airbitat DC Cooling System enables data centres to reach a targeted Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of below 1.3, backed by eight years of engineering and ST Engineering's patented evaporative cooling technology. This performance represents a significant improvement over current regulatory requirements for data centres in Singapore, positioning it to meet more stringent standards for future data centre builds. “Through re-engineering our established Airbitat solution for the data centre environment, we have successfully developed a sustainable solution that significantly cuts energy consumption while reducing carbon intensity. Its ability to be readily deployed in existing data centres presents an attractive option for operators who are looking for cost-effective solutions to lower energy consumption and achieve their sustainability targets,” says Gareth Tang, Head of Urban Environment Solutions at ST Engineering. “With the exponential growth in compute-intensive applications and increasing data needs, the data centre industry is fast reaching its sustainability tipping point. We believe that the Airbitat DC Cooling System can help the industry address its most critical challenge today and support its growth in a more sustainable manner.” Enabling greener data centres Backed by extensive R&D, the Airbitat DC Cooling System comprises of a Dual Coil Computer Room Air Handler (CRAH) and a Deep Cooling Unit that’s powered by patented Reevac Deep Cooling technology. The Airbitat DC Cooling System works by pre-cooling the hot return air in the data hall to reduce over 40% of the heat load from the existing chiller system. This significantly reduces the overall energy requirements for cooling by more than 20%. Additionally, the Airbitat DC Cooling System does not generate waste heat into the environment as it does not use energy-intensive compressors, nor refrigerants. It also has lower water consumption requirements when compared to conventional water-cooled chiller systems. The Airbitat DC Cooling System can operate under varied climate conditions ranging from hot and humid, to hot and dry environments. Its smart controls detect ambient psychrometric conditions and automatically adjusts its cooling modes in real-time for consistent energy efficient cooling. Additionally, its modular design and ability to scale on demand accommodates different data centre cooling requirements as well as structural and layout constraints, allowing for easy integration in both brownfield and greenfield developments. The International Energy Agency estimates that the data centre industry currently uses around 1% of the world’s electricity, which could reach double digits by 2030. In Singapore, data centres accounted for 7% of Singapore’s electricity requirements in 2020. Over 40% of data centre energy needs are used for cooling, and data centres commonly utilise conventional water-cooled chiller systems which not only have high energy and water consumption requirements, but also release waste heat into the environment. With demand for data centre services set to heighten against the backdrop of climate change, more efficient and effective cooling technologies will be critical to ensure the sustainable growth of the industry.

Airedale by Modine launches with Corscale Data Centres

Following the announcement that Airedale has commenced full scale production at its new US chiller plant in Rockbridge, Virginia, the company has confirmed a significant order with data centre giant, Corscale, with plans for further business in the coming months. With Airedale by Modine cooling solutions set to be installed at Corscale’s Gainesville Crossing Data Campus, the company has secured a healthy pipeline for its OptiChill free-cooling chillers, AireWall fan walls and SmartCool ONE computer room air handling units. Corscale is focused on delivering sustainability at scale for hyperscale operators and enterprise clients. Following a substantial period of consultation, Corscale appointed Airedale by Modine due to its history of free-cooling technology paired with its in-depth knowledge and understanding of the data centre industry. Having worked closely with engineers from Corscale, Airedale by Modine has developed a specialised data centre chiller based on its existing OptiChill range. The Corscale chiller, with enhanced free-cooling, has been designed to meet North American safety standards, using American materials and components, to offer a world-class energy efficient solution. Engineering specialists at the chiller plant in Virginia have worked with their colleagues at Airedale by Modine’s centre of excellence in Leeds, UK, to deliver a cooling solution that delivers on performance whilst operating at higher water temperatures and fluid temperature differentials than traditional offerings, enhancing energy efficiency and free-cooling potential. Prior to the commencement of site deliveries, the team from Corscale will be invited to a witness test at Airedale by Modine’s brand new state-of-the-art laboratories in Rockbridge VA, where the units will be put through their paces under various conditions and tested at different heat loads, simulating the environment and conditions they will be operational under. The test centre at Rockbridge is capable of testing a complete range of air conditioning equipment up to 2.2MW (expanding to 5MW in future for water-cooled chillers), the climate temperature being fully controllable anywhere from 15°C/59°F to 52°C/126°F. Chiller The new Corscale chiller operates using twin screw compressors and has a number of special features, included to enhance efficiency and performance, including: • High capacity twin screw compressors offer reliability and flexibility, with staged capacity control • High water temperatures to suit modern data centre designs that prioritise sustainability • Enhanced controls, including fast start, input power limiting and intelligent management of compressors, refrigerant and pumps • An on-board variable speed pump to precisely match cooling demand, reducing waste energy expenditure while maintaining water-side temperature differential and saving on space and electrical distribution requirements • Optimised economisers to provide unmatched free cooling potential • 100% contained Glycol loop to isolate the economiser from the cooling loop and increase efficiency of the AireWall units • Enhanced controls platform, including redundancy back-up and fast-start mode, to minimise the risk of disruption in the event of mechanical breakdown • On-board active harmonic filtration, ensuring a clean power supply to the data centre, while saving on external plant requirements. Jonas Caino, Vice President at Airedale by Modine says, “We are delighted to announce our order with Corscale, as we start full-scale production at our first-class facilities in Virginia, the largest data centre market in the world. “Having invested heavily in our US production facilities, ensuring they deliver the same high-quality service and product that our clients have grown to expect and respect from our European production sites, it has been really interesting and enjoyable to work with our American-based colleagues on such a fantastic project and client as Corscale.” Jonas concludes, “This order is just the start for our Rockbridge facility, and I am excited to see what the next few years holds.”

Castrol and Submer to collaborate on immersion cooling solutions

Castrol and Submer have signed an agreement that will aim to accelerate the adoption of immersion cooling as a path to more efficient and sustainable data centre operations. The two companies plan to collaborate on the global supply, standardisation and development of next generation immersion cooling fluids – fluids used to cool components of IT equipment by submerging the server equipment in a thermally conductive and dielectric liquid. The servers are cooled as a result and heat is transferred from the source to the liquid. By combining Castrol’s thermal management expertise with Submer’s expertise in immersion cooling systems, the two organisations aim to achieve a multitude of benefits, particularly in allowing data centres to be managed in a more sustainable manner. With immersion cooling, water usage and the power consumption needed to operate and cool server equipment can be significantly reduced. bp, Castrol’s parent company, is also working with other companies in key industrial sectors that have significant carbon emissions to help them decarbonise by offering integrated energy solutions. This potentially opens additional opportunities for Castrol and Submer to explore integrated coolant and energy offers, tailored to support data centre customers to help them meet their sustainability goals. “At Castrol, we aim to work with our customers to help deliver a more sustainable future as set out in our PATH360 framework, including working with our commercial customers to help them save energy, waste and water. Teaming up with Submer is a great example of how cooperation can help deliver more efficient operations and can bring about many opportunities for us to continue to deliver products that help save energy whilst delivering high-performance with increased efficiency”, says Rebecca Yates, bp’s Vice President of Advanced Mobility and Industrial Products. “At Submer, our stated mission is to enable sustainable digital infrastructures. There are two key drivers for needing a different medium other than air; there’s a technical need driven by the supporting future generations of high-density chips that can no longer be cooled by traditional means, and a sustainability driver, driven by the need to deliver more sustainable data centres with improved environmental performance. Thanks to immersion cooling, we can run these digital infrastructures with considerably reduced energy and space than typically required. Additionally, by utilising heat recovery and reuse technology, we turn them into highly efficient thermal power sources that can deliver hot water to neighbouring businesses. All this happens thanks to a liquid medium that both Castrol and Submer are experts in”, comments Daniel Pope, Co-Founder and CEO, Submer.

Cool successor with sustainable DNA

Rittal is expanding its smart cooling unit solutions by adding the new Blue e+ S range. Its latest generation of cooling units with the lower output categories of 300, 500, and 1,000W have been designed for efficiency, ensuring a smaller footprint and lower costs – just like their ‘bigger brothers’. So, it’s a win-win both for users and for the future of the planet. Solutions that reduce our carbon footprint during production are in high demand. But at the same time, these solutions need to be intelligent and communication-enabled so that they can be easily integrated into digitalised manufacturing environments. Seven years ago, Rittal responded to this demand with its Blue e+ range of cooling solutions and launched extremely efficient enclosure cooling units, which provided on average energy savings of 75%. Now Rittal has a new generation – the next generation – but still developed with that same design DNA. These new cooling units with their lower cooling outputs of 300, 500, and 1,000 watts called ‘Blue e+ S’ add to the Blue e+ family and bring with them additional smart capabilities. And furthermore, this new generation offers innovative energy saving features for the production process. What’s behind this energy saving and therefore cost reduction is the technology used, combining a heat pipe with inverter-controlled components. The heat pipe works without a compressor, expansion valve, or other regulating elements and so does not need any electrical energy except to operate the fan. Depending on the thermal energy generated in the enclosure and the current ambient temperature, cooling can be performed with the heat pipe alone. The additional compressor cooling only operates if a large amount of heat has to be dissipated from the enclosure or if the ambient temperature is very high. And what’s more – when it does operate, it is far more energy efficient than conventional units. This is because the compressor and fans possess an inverter-controlled drive, which automatically adjusts its speeds depending on the requirements. As a result, the temperature within the enclosure remains constant, and the energy efficiency is significantly higher than with other more conventional cooling units. Staying cool all the time Alongside energy efficiency, another feature also reduces the carbon footprint: The new Blue e+ S series uses a refrigerant with a GWP (Global Warming Potential) that is 56% lower than those used in comparable cooling units. Furthermore, instead of the R-134a previously used, the cooling circuit in the new generation of units now runs with R-513A refrigerant. Smart communication-enabled capabilities With its additional smart functions, the new cooling units also help in the digitisation process. With a fully integrated IoT interface as standard, the cooling units can be intelligently monitored in digitalised environments and easily connected to Rittal's new Smart Service Portal. This optimises the service processes and increases efficiency through predictive maintenance. As a result, fewer unplanned downtimes occur which all helps to manage the high cost of production, especially with Industry 4.0 processes. Production-friendly facelift These cooling units in the lower output classes have also undergone a facelift. The series’ most striking feature is an integrated coloured LED light strip. This means that warning messages can be immediately seen, even from far away. A display on the front of the enclosure provides additional up-to-date information. Moreover, the cooling units are equipped with the familiar NFC interface, which enables them to communicate with mobile devices that have the Rittal Scan & Service app installed.

Alibaba Cloud launches third data centre in Germany

Alibaba Cloud has announced that it has launched its third data centre in Germany to support the growing digital transformation demands from customers across Europe. Located in Frankfurt, the data centre provides a wide range of cloud computing products ranging from storage, network to database. With the data residing in Germany, the data centre adheres to the highest security standards and the strict compliance regulations set out in the Cloud Computing Compliance Controls Catalog (C5) in Germany. Together, the three data centres offer European customers high availability, exceptional resilience and robust disaster recovery capabilities. With the introduction of the new data centre, Alibaba Cloud now boasts a network of 84 availability zones in 27 regions across the globe, offering a highly secure, scalable, robust and sustainable cloud infrastructure to support global customers embracing digital innovation. “The third data centre launch underscores our continuous commitment to serving the local German and European markets,” says Raymond Ma, General Manager of Europe, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence. “With our proven innovations and competitive solutions that meet strict security and compliance requirements, we are determined in our mission to support our customers with their digital transformation demands.” The new data centre also features free cooling operation via dry coolers - using naturally cool ambient air instead of mechanical refrigeration. The full free cooling hours are expected to reach over 7,000 hours a year. In addition, the data centre is committed to using 100% green electricity to power its operation, along with an intelligent cloud-based platform to monitor and optimise its daily carbon footprint for a more sustainable operation approach. Alibaba Cloud has been collaborating with customers in the automotive, manufacturing, retail and gaming sectors in Europe since it unveiled its first data centre in Frankfurt in 2016. Since then, Alibaba Cloud has also introduced multiple AI services to the market, such as Intelligent Speech Interaction, a Machine Learning Platform for AI (PAI) and GPU clusters to support clients’ demands for ongoing cloud-based innovation.  As a member of the Trusted Cloud Initiative of the BMWK, Alibaba Cloud was also the first cloud service provider to receive the C5 test certificate with extended requirements from the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). It also successfully passed the audit of German AI Cloud Services Compliance Criteria Catalogue (AIC4), the first applicable testing standard established by Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) for certifying the security of AI applications deployed in Germany. It has also partnered with companies including Siemens and SAP to drive digital transformation in China.  Alibaba is the world’s third leading and Asia Pacific’s leading IaaS provider by revenue in 2021, according to Gartner’s report, Market Share: IT Services, 2021. 

Custodian selects Aqua as premier cooling partner for new Dartford site

Custodian Data Centres has enlisted Aqua to design, supply and install an innovative temperature control system at the new 10MW site located in Dartford, Kent. With Custodian’s award-winning Maidstone facility nearing capacity, Custodian commissioned its new ‘DA2’ facility in Dartford, Kent, to meet the continued growth demands of its customers. Less than 15 miles outside of Central London, Custodian’s goal was to provide an advanced facility for end-users to relocate and host their mission-critical applications. The new site is carrier-neutral, operating at a PUE rating of below 1.3 and powered by resilient, 100% dual diverse renewable energy feeds. Aqua delivers a highly energy-efficient, bespoke, closed-loop air cooling system with integrated free cooling. The design for Custodian’s DA2 includes 12 custom-designed cooling coils and a free cooling chilled water system, comprising of 3 x 500kW Aqua EcoPro+ optimised free cooling chiller units, to accommodate for the initial phase of the site opening. The EcoPro+ units operate on R454B green refrigerant. Utilising integrated free cooling chillers, drastically reduces the amount of time mechanical cooling is required, saving significantly on energy usage, carbon impact and wear and tear of components parts, in particular the compressor. The Aqua EcoPro+ units have an in-built, optimised, free cooling coil, resulting in a fully packaged solution. In addition, with an Aqua unit, free cooling is achievable at higher ambient temperatures than with any other brand on the market, making Aqua a suitable partner for Custodian and its ever-growing client base as it allows for upgrades and additional capacity quickly and easily as needed, depending on customer needs. The system installed at Custodian achieves all the benefits of a fresh air system but without the need for the costs and resources normally associated with air filtration and maintenance. Fixed humidity control enables precise temperature control, eliminates any guesswork, and achieves total peace of mind. EC fans installed on-site maximise system efficiency even further, as well as achieving stable pressure control. “With the new DA2 Dartford site boasting a 10MW capacity, we needed a reliable cooling system that could handle the increased demands from the bigger site. Aqua’s bespoke energy-efficient systems and esteemed trusted experts means our customer’s data remains protected and running at optimised efficiency”, says Callum Woodhouse, M&E Manager at Custodian Data Centres. “Their sustainability commitments align with our overall company goals in reducing our carbon footprint, whilst providing a cost-effective and reliable solution for our customers. As our customer base continues to grow and expand over time, this Aqua solution allows us to adapt to the additional demands, in a seamless and efficient way”. A fully concurrent maintained pipework system is integral to the design, ensuring no single point of failure, something which is essential in the data centre industry. In fact, a part of the pipework can be removed without affecting the normal facility operations. N+1 capability was built-in on the mechanical equipment, including fans, coils, and pumps - this gives the facility full redundancy, and in the unlikely event that a fault should ever occur, DA2 can continue to operate whilst maintenance is undertaken. Mike West, Contracts Director at Aqua, explains: “Custodian’s commitment to energy efficiency is evident throughout their data centre facilities and it was critical that the DA2 site needed to mirror the energy efficiencies achieved at Maidstone. Reducing carbon footprint for end-user clients – with lower operating costs – were key drivers in this project. Maidstone uses five times less energy per kW of IT load than an average data centre, a challenge we were more than happy to accept and believe we have exceeded!”.

Critical cooling specialists launch Cloud Diagnostics

Airedale has launched Cloud Diagnostics, an advanced HVAC performance management tool available on your phone, tablet or laptop, in response to the pressure operators and facility managers are under when working with cooling equipment that is increasingly critical to business operations. Airedale has worked with data science experts to develop a new family of cloud-enabled products which can be installed in new and existing equipment like air handling units, chillers and precision air conditioners, allowing them to be connected, monitored and analysed via a secured communication channel to the Airedale Cloud Diagnostics servers. Cloud Diagnostics has been developed to be retrofitted with no disruption to service and offers several key benefits that can really lift the pressure off people tasked with keeping HVAC systems running safely and efficiently. Leak detection An emerging feature of the predictive maintenance ability of Cloud Diagnostics is a leak detection algorithm. By being able to recognise the operational features and patterns that signal a leak, detection can occur at very low levels, saving a client significant costs and environmental damage. Most leaks are detected today at around 20%, which is when a drop in performance becomes more obvious to facilities personnel, but in tests Airedale Cloud Diagnostics was able to report a suspected leak at 5%. This early detection has huge implications not only on cost savings, but also safety and environmental targets Live dashboard The information gathered by Cloud Diagnostics is reported on a live dashboard, which is available on any internet-connected device, and alerts can be delivered immediately via SMS or email. This allows for any issues to be recognized early and responded to immediately, avoiding disruption and expensive call outs. Data aggregation can be configured to report the latest data received as well as extracting KPIs for a comprehensive visual analysis of the unit’s performance. (e.g. chiller average supply water temperature for last 7 rolling days). Predictive maintenance Predictive maintenance is the key to optimising asset management for any critical equipment. HVAC units connected to Cloud Diagnostics are analysed for performance, utilising many algorithms and machine learning techniques, whereby the unit's performance is measured on a variety of relevant factors which are all analysed for deviations against ‘normalised’ behaviour, both instantaneously and over time as well. If a drop in performance against operating conditions is detected, this will act as an early warning system for the customer/maintenance team to investigate further. Being able to identify threats and faults in advance of them happening has a huge cost saving benefit, both in terms of emergency repairs, call out fees and downtime costs to the business. Security Airedale’s products are part of the critical infrastructure of a building or a data centre and therefore it is imperative that they are secured both from physical and network access. Airedale Cloud Diagnostics has been designed with security in mind, utilising the latest technology and security practices. Access to the Airedale Cloud Diagnostics portal is via a web-based portal with valid SSL certificate, using the same technology as internet banking and other secure portals. Reece Thomas, Controls product manager for Airedale says, “Airedale Cloud Diagnostics is something I am incredibly excited about, given the huge cost and environmental benefits it can offer our clients. All that is required to connect a piece of equipment to the service is a gateway into the unit for the system to collect and transfer data, some form of internet connection and a 24Vdc power supply.” Reece continues, “The ability for connected units to be able to learn from and compare against each other utilising intelligent unit modelling means that the performance analysis techniques continually improve and get stronger over time, making things like leak detection a much simpler and more efficient process” Reece concludes, “Another benefit of sharing data anonymously is that Airedale can use the data collected to analyse and determine how to better improve our products based on actual customer usage profiles. The benefits to this are endless and our clients can be absolutely assured of security and anonymity.”

DCNN Exclusive: Making sustainability gains with liquid cooling

This piece was written by Stuart Crump, Director of Sales at Iceotope Technologies Limited on how liquid cooling could be vital in the race to net zero. Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) objectives have started to drive data centre business goals as the world transitions to a low carbon economy. Sustainability is no longer being viewed as a cost on business, indeed many customers are now using sustainability as a criterion for vendor selection. Positive action to reduce emissions is not only good for the planet, it’s also good for business. It will also signpost efficient data centres to an enlightened market. New developments in liquid cooling can assist data centre sustainability targets by significantly reducing facility energy consumption for mechanical services, decreasing water use, and providing a platform for high-grade reusable heat. Together, the characteristics of liquid cooling adds up to bottom-line benefits as well as ecological advantages to data centre operators, helping deliver competitive advantage in this highly commercialised sector. According to the IEA, data centres account for around 1% of global electricity demand. While data centre workloads and internet traffic have multiplied dramatically since 2015, energy use has remained relatively flat. However, demand for more digital services is growing at an astounding rate. For every bit of data that travels the network, a further five bits are transmitted within and among data centres. Immersion liquid cooling can greatly benefit data centre sustainability by significantly reducing overall cooling energy requirements by up to 80%. Data centre operators and customers now understand that air-cooled ITE environments are reaching the limits of their effectiveness.  As compute densities increase, the energy demands of individual servers and racks spiral upwards. Legacy air-cooled data halls cannot move the volume of cool air through the racks required by the latest CPU and GPU systems to maintain operating temperature. This means they must have a plan that includes liquid cooling if these sites are to remain viable. Liquid cooling techniques, such as precision immersion cooling circulates small volumes of a harmless dielectric compound across the surface of the server removing almost 100% of the heat generated by the electronic components. The latest solutions use a sealed chassis that enables IT equipment including servers and storage devices to be easily added or removed from racks with minimal disruption and no mess. Precision liquid cooling removes the requirement for server fans by eliminating the need to blow cool air over the IT components. Removing air cooling infrastructure from data centres also removes the capital expense of some cooling plant, as well as the operational costs of installation, power, servicing and maintenance. Removal of fans and plant not only produces an immediate benefit in terms of reducing noise in the technical area, it also frees up useful space in racks and cabinets as well as in plant rooms. Space efficiency equates to either facilities which are smaller in physical footprint, or the ability to host larger numbers of high density racks. Importantly, precision liquid cooling provides futureproof, scalable infrastructure to meet the provisioning requirements of tomorrow’s workloads and storage needs, Precision cooling and data centre water use The media reports widely on the lack of clean water for irrigation and consumption in drought hit areas from around the world. However, what has sometimes been called the data centre’s ‘dirty little secret’ is the volume of potable water required to operate certain data centres. Many air cooled data centres need water and lots of it. A small 1MW data centre using a conventional air-cooling process can use around 25.5 million litres of water every year. With mainly air-cooled processes, the data centre industry is currently consuming billions of litres of water each year. On the other hand, precision immersion liquid cooling consumes zero water in most cases and can be installed anywhere – including many existing data centres. The water in the cooling system, allowing for maintenance and water loop refreshes, can easily reduce data centre water use by more than 95%. The benefit of all this hot air… Creating a revenue generator from a cost item on the balance sheet is an ultimate dream come true. Currently, air cooled data centres eject heat into the atmosphere in the vast majority of cases. Liquid cooling techniques which capture and remove high-grade heat from the servers offers the capability to redirect this heat to district heating networks, industrial applications and other schemes. Using well established techniques this revenue stream, or sustainability project, could help to heat industrial sites and local facilities, such as schools and hospitals.  Climate change, government intervention with emission standards and public and investor pressure has helped drive change in the wider data centre business outlook. Savings and new revenue streams that benefit the organisations sustainability credentials warrant a critical review of their cost/benefit. There is the opportunity for data centres to move away from previous notions of how data centres operate towards much greater efficiency and sustainable operations.