Data Centers are an integral part of the network and Internet-based services. Large amounts of heat is generated in a data center by electronic equipment and this needs to be flushed to avoid overheating of the components. Data centers are operational round-the-clock 365 days. So, a large amount of energy is consumed by conventional HVAC systems, usually Precision Air Conditioning (PAC) units, to maintain the required temperature for the servers.

Problem with Current Data Center Cooling Systems

Almost all data centers use air-conditioning to cool the space. Cooled air is supplied to the data center at 15-20 deg C is supplied by the PAC units and air returns at 35-45 deg C. 

To cool the returning hot air, chilled water supplied at 7 deg C is used. This chilled water is generated using a chiller that consumes 0.8-1 KW/TR of cooling. For such high temperature of air (35-45 deg C), it is a waste of energy to cool it entirely using very low temperature water at 7 deg C .

Cooling by using High Temperature water

Our solution takes a two step approach to cooling the data center:

Step 1: Cool high temperature air at 35-45 deg C using higher temperature water between 15-25 deg C generated using a two stage cooling tower. The advantage of this step is that it does not require vapour compression system to generate cold water to cool the air. It uses a two-stage evaporation to produce cold water that cools the return air to 18-28 deg C air depending on the season and location. This step provides cooling using very low energy of 0.05 KW/Ton of cooling. 

Step 2: Cool the air cooled in Step 1 using chilled water from a chiller using vapour compression system to the designed temperature of the supply air. This step will consume energy at the rate of 0.8-1.0 KW/Ton of cooling. However, due to pre-cooling done in Step 1, the amount of cooling required in Step 2 will be reduced significantly. In dry locations, the entire cooling could be done with Step 1 itself in winters.