Liquid Cooling for a Greener Data Center

In “Seven Design Considerations for a Green Data Centre,” an article published recently on the Green Cars & Green Fuel Center website, the author provides recommendations for improving the energy efficiency of data centers. One of the author’s seven recommendations is to investigate liquid cooling. The author, Wolfgang Jaegel of Datacraft, writes “To meet the challenges of blade servers and high-density computing, more organisations are realising the need for effective cooling and heat management solutions. Many are welcoming liquid cooling systems into their infrastructures to achieve better cooling efficiency…”

Liquid cooled server cabinets are very energy efficient, consuming up to 40% (1.2 PUE) less energy than air cooled infrastructures. In typical applications, the payback from energy savings is less than one year. Rack level liquid cooling also allows for cooling capacity to be added as servers are added, saving the data center money in up front costs.   

Lytron offers a Coolant Distribution Unit (CDU), a standard liquid-to-liquid cooling system specifically designed for data centers. The LCS50, a 150kW CDU, supplies coolant at precisely controlled temperatures to liquid cooled cabinets and transfers the waste heat to facility water. Lytron also offers heat exchangers for cabinet cooling and cold plates for electronics cooling  and has partnered with a liquid cooled cabinet supplier to offer a complete data center liquid cooling solution. For more information, please call Kathryn Whitenack at +1-781-933-7300.

DatacenterDynamics

Lytron will be exhibiting its new LCS50 at the DatacenterDynamics tradeshow in San Francisco on July 16th. The LCS50 Coolant Distribution Unit (CDU), a liquid-to-liquid cooling system, supplies coolant at precisely controlled temperatures to liquid cooled cabinets. In addition to cooling systems, Lytron also designs and manufactures cold plates and heat exchangers for liquid cooling in data centers. If you plan to attend the tradeshow, please visit us at our booth!  

CDU Configuration Software for Liquid Cooled Cabinets

Lytron announced yesterday that it has launched a complimentary software for data centers. The software assists data center facility managers and engineers in determining the number of Coolant Distribution Units (CDUs) required to supply their liquid cooled cabinets. Users can select the specific makes and models of their liquid cooled cabinets and the software will automatically populate the program with the required flows and temperatures. The software can also be used to run thermal calculations for custom cabinet cooling configurations. It simplifies the sizing of a CDU and allows the user to quickly see the impact that changing flow rates, temperatures, and heat loads will have on their liquid cooling loop. Read the Full Press Release.

Stockholm, Sweden

An article written by Yevgeniy Sverdlik in the January issue of Data Center Dynamics FOCUS magazine, titled “Sweden pitches for data centers,” reviews the attractive pitch the Invest in Sweden Agency (ISA) has for data centers. The country boasts district heating and cooling systems that allow customers to feed their waste heat energy into the system and trade it for cooling energy. IBM is one of the companies taking advantage of this, using its waste heat to warm its own building as well as selling its excess heat back to the energy company in the form of hot water. Fortum, the energy company, uses seawater for cooling from about January through August. The company provides the cold water at a temperature of 6°C (43°F). Fortum recently built a thermal storage facility in a mountain, capable of storing 40MW worth of cooling. By taking advantage of its cold climate, Fortum is able to provide some of its Swedish customers with a heating and cooling value proposition that is better than in other areas of Europe.

Tieto, one of the leading data center owners and operators in the Nordics, is also taking advantage of Sweden’s environment for energy efficiency and cost savings. Tieto is currently building a data center in a cave. The data center, which is scheduled for opening in April 2010, will use outside air and the cave’s long tunnels for cooling the data center most of the year. In the summer, the company will use chillers to supplement the cooling. Like IBM’s facility, Tieto’s cave facility also plans to use excess heat to warm its facility and sell its excess heat to the utility.

 One other way of taking advantage of a cool climate is to use a liquid-to-liquid cooling system for data center cooling. A liquid-to-liquid cooling system supplies temperature controlled coolant to liquid cooled cabinets. The cooling is provided by a separate facility water loop, which could be cooled by the environment.  

Although we can’t all take advantage of caves for cooling or district heating systems, we can look for innovative ways to cool data centers more efficiently. With the large expense of cooling a data center, it pays to take the time to be sure that the data center cooling solution selected will be the most economical and easy-to-manage over the long term.

Verari Portable Data Center

Data centers produce a large amount of heat that must be removed in order to keep them running properly. Verari Systems produces portable data centers that have a built-in patented cooling solution called Vertical Cooling Technology™. With so much power in such a compact area, highly efficient cooling is critical.

Verari’s portable data center, called the FOREST Container, houses over 2,880 servers or 26PBs of storage in a 40’ x 8’ x 9.5’ space. According to Verari’s website, “Energy spending is dramatically reduced by the Verari FOREST Container’s ultra efficient power subsystems and patented Vertical Cooling Technology™ boosting reliability and performance.” Verari also states that it can “reduce total energy costs by improving data center efficiency by up to 110%.”

 As part of Verari’s Vertical Cooling Technology, there are twenty flat tube evaporators in the ceiling of the container. These custom heat exchangers were designed and manufactured by Lytron. The heat transfer fluid used by Vertical Cooling Technology is refrigerant that is cooled by facility water.

Lytron also designs and manufactures standard and custom liquid-to-liquid cooling systems, recirculating chillers, ambient cooling systems, and cold plates for liquid cooling data centers and IT equipment. Our LCS50, a 150kW standard liquid-to-liquid cooling system, was designed specifically for data center cooling. The LCS50 supplies precise temperature-controlled coolant to liquid cooled cabinets and transfers the waste heat to facility water.