May 3, 2016 at 11:37Snow cooling system. White datacenter project
In the struggle to reduce costs, server farm owners are constantly looking for ways to cut electricity bills. It's no secret that data centers consume 1-2% of the electricity that is generated in the world, but, interestingly, servers - they are the brain of the data center - consume only a third of the energy.
It turns out that the most "gluttonous" is the server farm cooling system, if it is organized on a traditional scheme with chillers or precision air conditioners with direct expansion (DX-systems). Therefore, data center owners have long begun to pay increased attention to upgrading server cooling systems, new technologies are constantly being introduced in order to achieve an acceptable level of energy efficiency, while not forgetting about mother nature.
While Microsoft decided to plunge its server farms"To the bottom of the ocean" , in order to reduce operating costs, the Japanese decided to cool their information stores with over - snow. It is not about “crushing” the building with snow.
The engineers conducted an unusual experiment, during which a storage system for thermal energy was created, in simple words of cold. Such a system collects snow in the winter, and in the summer uses it as a coolant. The rest of the time, the server farm is cooled using an indirect freecooling system.
The White Datacenter Project, an experimental one-story data center with an area of 110.46 square meters, is located in Bibai.
The city is located in northern Japan on the northernmost island of Hokkaido, in the district of Sorati. Such a server farm accommodates 20 racks with IT equipment.
The research team developed a mechanism for collecting snow inside giant barrows. The mechanism was then covered with sheets of heat-insulating material.
When the snow begins to melt slowly (late spring, summer), cold water can be used for the air conditioning system.
This method of cooling allows you to maintain the temperature inside the data center at the level of 25 degrees, and this, in turn, reduces energy costs. Such an innovative project allowed the Japanese to support PUE in the range from 1.02 to 1.15.
Investors and builders are being searched to create a large-scale server farm, since there is already a site for it, and it is 94 hectares.
It turns out that the most "gluttonous" is the server farm cooling system, if it is organized on a traditional scheme with chillers or precision air conditioners with direct expansion (DX-systems). Therefore, data center owners have long begun to pay increased attention to upgrading server cooling systems, new technologies are constantly being introduced in order to achieve an acceptable level of energy efficiency, while not forgetting about mother nature.
While Microsoft decided to plunge its server farms"To the bottom of the ocean" , in order to reduce operating costs, the Japanese decided to cool their information stores with over - snow. It is not about “crushing” the building with snow.
The engineers conducted an unusual experiment, during which a storage system for thermal energy was created, in simple words of cold. Such a system collects snow in the winter, and in the summer uses it as a coolant. The rest of the time, the server farm is cooled using an indirect freecooling system.
The White Datacenter Project, an experimental one-story data center with an area of 110.46 square meters, is located in Bibai.
The city is located in northern Japan on the northernmost island of Hokkaido, in the district of Sorati. Such a server farm accommodates 20 racks with IT equipment.
The research team developed a mechanism for collecting snow inside giant barrows. The mechanism was then covered with sheets of heat-insulating material.
When the snow begins to melt slowly (late spring, summer), cold water can be used for the air conditioning system.
This method of cooling allows you to maintain the temperature inside the data center at the level of 25 degrees, and this, in turn, reduces energy costs. Such an innovative project allowed the Japanese to support PUE in the range from 1.02 to 1.15.
Investors and builders are being searched to create a large-scale server farm, since there is already a site for it, and it is 94 hectares.