Historically, the information heart cooling course of has required two key elements: a lot of water and plenty of vitality. Dry coolers supply a possible different.
By cooling IT tools with much less electrical energy and just about no water waste, knowledge heart dry coolers may assist clear up among the most urgent sustainability challenges going through the business.
Nonetheless, dry coolers in knowledge facilities even have some drawbacks, and so they aren’t appropriate for each facility. Right here’s a information to how they work, their execs and cons, and the extent to which dry cooling could impression knowledge facilities sooner or later.
What’s Information Middle Dry Cooling?
Dry cooling in knowledge facilities is a warmth dissipation method that makes use of ambient air to scale back facility temperatures.
Dry coolers work by circulating a fluid from an space the place warmth builds up, comparable to a knowledge heart server room, into a tool the place it’s uncovered to outdoors air. So long as the skin air is cooler than the fluid, it reduces the fluid’s temperature. The cooled fluid is then pumped again into the warmth assortment website, and the method is repeated.
A key ingredient of dry coolers is the specialised warmth change mechanism the place heated fluid passes via finned tubes or plates. These warmth exchangers maximize the floor space uncovered to ambient air, permitting for environment friendly warmth switch with out water consumption.
Dry Cooling vs. Cooling Towers
Dry cooling is distinct from cooling towers, a extra widespread cooling technique in knowledge facilities. Cooling towers work by sucking in water, working it via areas of warmth focus after which evaporating among the water to scale back temperatures.
There are two key variations between dry cooling programs and cooling towers:
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Water use – The fluid that flows via a dry cooling system could also be water or a water-based resolution. However as a result of the system operates as a closed loop, no water is wasted. In distinction, cooling towers constantly devour giant portions of water, resulting in poor water utilization effectiveness (WUE) outcomes.
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Power use – Cooling towers are typically (however not all the time) accompanied by chillers, which depend on an energy-intensive mechanical refrigeration course of to chill water. Dry coolers use much less vitality as a result of their energy necessities are restricted to pumping water via the system.
Thus, dry cooling’s fundamental advantages are that it’s extra water- and (in some instances) energy-efficient than conventional knowledge heart cooling.
The Downsides of Dry Cooling for Information Facilities
If dry cooling is extra environment friendly, why don’t all knowledge facilities use it? The reply – as with many different sustainability-friendly knowledge heart applied sciences – boils all the way down to price and effectiveness.
From a price perspective, dry cooling programs are sometimes costlier to arrange than cooling towers. They require a extra meticulous design and extra expensive elements, like specialised warmth exchangers. In the long term, dry cooling could lower your expenses by way of decreased water and vitality prices, however the upfront bills could be a turn-off to knowledge heart operators. The Division of Power estimates that, usually, dry cooling can price three to 4 instances as a lot as moist cooling to put in.
The opposite main draw back of dry cooling is that it doesn’t work properly in areas the place the out of doors temperature is excessive or the place exterior air is humid. If the ambient air is hotter than the temperature inside your server room, it gained’t quiet down your programs. Humid air is much less of an issue for dry coolers than it’s for cooling towers (which develop into much less environment friendly when out of doors air is moist and due to this fact much less conducive to evaporating liquid), however they nonetheless don’t switch warmth as successfully beneath humid situations.
So, simply because it’s at the moment tough to energy knowledge facilities utilizing clear vitality alone because of components like fluctuating environmental situations, it’s not real looking in lots of climates to make use of dry cooling solely. The tactic works greatest solely in areas the place outdoors temperatures don’t exceed about 80°F (27°C), though accepting considerably increased temperatures inside knowledge facilities might help to push this restrict up a bit.
Since most areas experiencing knowledge heart development don’t supply these weather conditions, dry cooling is unlikely to develop into a major technique of information heart cooling.
One additional consideration is the bodily footprint. Dry coolers sometimes require more room than cooling towers to attain the identical cooling capability, as they want bigger floor areas for air-to-fluid warmth change. This elevated spatial requirement might be difficult for knowledge facilities in dense city environments or services with restricted enlargement choices.
A Blended Strategy
That doesn’t imply, nonetheless, that dry cooling is unattainable in different areas. A hybrid method that mixes dry cooling with cooling towers is feasible. Below this technique, a knowledge heart would come with each varieties of cooling programs and change between them as wanted based mostly on ambient temperatures.
Hybrid knowledge heart cooling is costlier than constructing only one sort of cooling system, after all. However for knowledge heart operators which might be dedicated to lowering water waste, it’s a beautiful choice.
