Energy efficient synergy

    Today our guest is Dmitry Bornyakov, head of the information technology department of the Baltika Novosibirsk plant. Under Dmitry’s leadership, a project was implemented to introduce a cold water conditioning system in the server room of the Baltika-Novosibirsk plant without using a refrigeration machine (chiller). Highly effective precision cooling of IT equipment is ensured by industrial ethylene glycol used in the technological process of brewing beer.

    One of the key risks in a comprehensive assessment of the IT infrastructure of the Novosibirsk branch was recognized as the risk of stopping the server room due to a possible failure of the air conditioning system. This was facilitated by the fact that climate systems de jure are not included in the area of ​​responsibility of IT, and, accordingly, IT can only indirectly affect the continuity of their work.

    Assessing the possible options for leveling such risks, it was noted that the climatic conditions of western Siberia allow the use of outdoor air to remove heat. Moreover, schemes with the organization of coolant cooling with outside air are already used for the technological needs of the Novosibirsk site.
    To calculate the payback of possible solutions, the operating costs for the operation and maintenance of the existing classic freon data center system were calculated.

    In general, how it was .... But it was boring. Everything worked. Around the server room (I can call it a data center) there was some kind of rustling, and all sorts of attempts to increase entropy and other activities that attached importance and value to this place were self-contained.
    The people began to relax, increasingly play kicker (table football) in the warehouse and discuss the prospects of the Kazakh space program, supplying them with drawings of a three-stage horse.



    At the same time, with scheduled maintenance of the air conditioning system, the next team identified a bug that could turn into a decisive jamb for us! Namely, the uninterruptible power supply could put a very large starting current of the Freon compressor. Not daring to rape the UPS with 20kW surges anymore, I ordered to dismantle the unit and conduct a thorough diagnosis, thinking of presenting warranty claims. No matter how! Everything indicated that the previous service was performed by people, to put it mildly, unprofessionally. A poorly evacuated route resulted in a copper plating of the compressor, which unambiguously leads to jamming of the bearings. The previous office from the energy service that performed the service denied our claim by our acts. A strange way to run a long-term business. Good luck to them.
    So, as soon as I got into it, a bunch of questions fell on my head - but how to live on with this approach? The situation with the near-contractor contractors did not suit me, and I began to pull the blanket over myself i.e. legitimize the ownership of air conditioning in the server room. Usually, in such cases no one resists.

    After calculating the budgets and comprehending the necessary amount of money for the quarterly maintenance of the three systems (one cools the UPS in a separate room), I felt a little uneasy. Of course, you can replace the “quarterly” with “once every six months”, but what was taken out and washed from the external blocks directly said, “once every six months” I will once recall.



    Representatives of APC spurred on to actively study the issue, stopping by on a visit, citing the fact that colleagues in Slavutich (Kiev) built a very interesting concept on the basis of InRow 100. Its key feature was cooling the water not with a chiller, but with a heat exchanger with technological glycol. It became enviable, especially since we have cold glycol - like a fool shag!

    The integrator said that the designers are ready to work honestly, but I needed a construct with the bosses, and I did it! When reporting the financial benefits of abandoning the secondary water circuit, it was allowed to initiate the design. A preliminary reading of InRow datasheet at night revealed its ability to work on ethylene / propylene glycol with a concentration of up to 50%! That allowed making bold and trump statements that “there will be no water!” In the director’s office.

    And then ... Having let go of importance, I conveyed to the designers ideological wisdom, while listening to the proposed innovations. The result was the abandonment of metal pipelines in order to reduce condensate, the use of heat-insulating paint on nodes with complex geometry, and most importantly, the rejection of the heat exchanger and virtualization of the second circuit using a three-way valve! He also insisted on the supply and removal of all media from the bottom of the blocks, through the ceilings. Still, the liquid ...

    The mixing unit turned out to be impressive, but flimsy to the touch. And since it was necessary to have it in the warehouse behind the server room, the risk of demolition of it by too frisky loader was obvious. I had to order a fence. InRow blocks are heavy !!! Bodrenko drag them to the second floor of the stairs did not work. I bow to the strong guys from the finished goods warehouse. They barely managed the six of them. Alas, there were traces on the linoleum in the hall and the anger of our curling team.

    During the installation of InRow in place, an extra server cabinet was formed. Seriously, it was planned for transferring to a duplicate server room. But this required a serious stop of part of the infrastructure, so all the action took place at night, and the darkest over the past 465 years. Coincided so. And further. When you understand that all cabinets easily ride on their wheels, it becomes a little awkward for a person who has been rolling chiffoniers on felt since childhood. But now in the department there are two pairs of new boots!

    The launch was delayed three times. Officially - due to the fact that it was difficult to gather all three participants in the process in one place and time. But, IMHO, everyone filled their worth, took revenge and mocked me. However, to the credit of all participants, the launch was made the first time with absolutely no comments. It would not be enough for someone to ruin my Birthday.

    Testing began the very next day, with an evil addiction. The system was brought to supercritical modes, the readings and triggering of emergency sensors were recorded. Standing in jets of cold wind in a space sheepskin coat, I took a technology parade. The cap pulled off to the back of the head, but did not fall - a halo prevented her.

    Anyone interested in boring technical details can read on.

    The next step was the internal approval of the idea, which took more than 4 months, after which a certain extract was obtained from the best world practices and the experience of colleagues in the Slavutich company. The main task that had to be solved was to ensure the circulation of the coolant with a speed of at least 0.2 l / s and a temperature at the inlet of InRow not lower than +5.6 С⁰. Those. in fact, there was a difference between the existing temperature and the minimum acceptable temperature for InRow, equal to 10С⁰, which did not allow connecting them directly to the technological circuit. Experts from various services and levels, including the director of the plant, participated in the evaluation of the proposed options. As a result of the reference, a scheme was adopted that excluded the presence of water and intermediate heat exchangers, designed to level the above-mentioned temperature difference.

    The general contractor was R-Style Siberia Integration. The design and installation of the hydraulic part of the solution was performed by Engineering Technologies. I did not doubt the capabilities of the first company due to the extensive experience working with them. Welcome to the work “Engineering Technologies” was given for the outstanding expert skills of their leader, whose subordinates surprised with the highest discipline and general culture of performing work during the audit and diagnostics of the existing air conditioning system. According to the terms of the APC company, in order to maintain the guarantee, the launch and configuration of InRow should have been performed by their specialist, who was granted the right to press the system start button. In total, 4 involved specialists, including installation, and 2 internal experts were involved in the implementation of the project.

    Outlining the similarities of the solution, I would not want to take bread from designers and experts who performed the calculation of the hydraulic resistance of the system, pipe diameters and characteristics of other elements. That is why I will not give a calculation model here. However, this does not prevent me from voicing the initial data that we operated on when calculating this model. As already mentioned, the solution to the problem is to obtain the necessary coolant circulation velocity at a given temperature. In addition to the previously mentioned characteristics, the pressures in the coolant supply and removal pipelines, type, concentration, and glycol temperature in the system were taken into account. In a countable form, these data are given in the table.



    Due to the necessity of supplying a coolant with a sufficiently low temperature to the InRow modules and eliminating the risk of leaks and leakage of condensed moisture, it was decided to introduce media into the modules from below through the ceilings. Also during installation, a low-condensing polypropylene pipe and a special heat-insulating paint were used. This has significantly reduced the cost of piping.



    After the launch, a series of system tests were carried out with a view to triggering sensors and checking the logic of emergency automation. An overview of the values ​​based on the results of these tests is given in the table.



    I want to note that a number of the obtained values ​​are beyond the scope of the InRow documentation, however, inside these modes the equipment behaves stably, without frost, overheating, displaying an alarm, etc.

    InRow modules have quite adequate means of local and remote monitoring of status and environments, and can not only send status messages, but also be covered by the MSSCOM system. The pumping automation cabinet and InRow cabinets receive power from the Galaxy 5000 server UPS. The power consumption of the solution is 906 watts. At the time of writing, the battery life of the server room was 97 minutes. By placing InRow modules in this room, the formation of a fairly isolated hot corridor with a volume of about 9 m3 has been achieved. Due to the fairly close distance between the modules, they were assembled into a logical group. The appearance of the equipment is shown in the photograph.



    The mixing unit is located outside the server room, however, to reduce hydraulic resistance, it is as close as possible to it. For the convenience of starting tests, electronic measuring instruments on it are duplicated by mechanical ones. When replicating a project, the scheme can be simplified.

    The solution was serviced during the warranty period by the specialists of the plant, all the more so as a first approximation, the devices look quite simple. From the maintenance operations, periodic cleaning (washing) of air and glycol filters is seen without stopping the solution. Operations that require switching to a freon system include global work on the glycol circuit of the plant. For example, draining a part of the system. For a three-year operation of the plant, a similar procedure was carried out only once - at the launch of the blending department. That is why part of the freon system is left as a safety unit and is supported by the automation cabinet in StandBy mode.

    To understand the scheme and logic of the organization of the existing hydraulic component of the solution, the mixing unit diagram is shown in the figure.



    During operation, a number of minor disadvantages of the design solution were identified, which were leveled by the next version, expanding the application of the system to the premises of the main UPS. The first and main thing that was done was the completely revised layout of the mixing unit. Not that I didn’t like him outwardly and looked like a flimsy construction ... he was bulky and resembled one of the “patented inventions” of the guys from our department. The role of the main pumps was revised, and instead of supporting a three-way valve, they turned into pumping ones. Thus, it was possible to solve all the previously identified shortcomings and implement new plans.
    Namely:
    • to ensure a uniform circulation rate of the glycol mixture.
    • ensure the independence of the system from the operation of industrial pumps of the main glycol circuit.
    • raise the pressure difference at the inlet and outlet to the level necessary to connect additional cooling modules in other IT rooms.

    The logic of the automation was improved, for the ability to choose a manual control mode. For example, forcibly turn on backup freon air conditioners. Work instructions and solutions for typical cases are written.

    To place an uninterruptible power supply located at around +0, i.e. 3.5m lower than the server one, a slightly different scheme was proposed, which allows for the logical redundancy of the room cooling system with a shortage of floor space. Namely, a fan coil was added to the air line of the Freon heat exchanger, capable of accepting the glycol mixture as a heat carrier. Three-dimensional drawings, which he periodically sent for approval, helped a lot to understand the idea of ​​the contractor. Such a scheme is a scheme, and a visual understanding of what you get is worth a lot.
    The appearance of the updated solution is presented in the photo. The mixing unit freed from unnecessary balancers and measuring instruments has become much more compact and simpler.

    In conclusion, I want to say that the assembled mixing unit is much simpler, cheaper and less than a water chiller. And the fact that we are fixing a steady decrease in the daily energy consumption of IT systems from 740 to 530 kW / h indicates a very high investment and operational efficiency of the solution.

    Acknowledgments:
    • To the leading engineer - mechanic of the Baltika-Novosibirsk branch, Vladimir Zakharov, for comprehensive technical advice.
    • Yuri Chentyrev, Director of the Baltika-Novosibirsk branch, for professional opposition.
    • To the Director of Engineering Technologies Yashkan Vitaliy for the combination of innovations, smart heads and skillful hands.
    • Alexander Samokhin, head of the regional customer service department for the Siberian Federal District, SchneiderElectric, for client-oriented consulting in preparing and launching the solution.
    • To the chief project engineer of R-Style Siberia-Integration, Alexander Bakhlykovuz, that he was able to bring all these people together.

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