Small and medium-sized data centers usually include IDC rooms and comprehensive rooms, with high cabinet density and generating a large amount of heat. They generally use air-cooled precision air conditioning and air-cooled chilled water air conditioning cooling systems. Room level or row to row level air conditioning end devices are used indoors. The PUE (energy efficiency index) of these old rooms is usually as high as 1.6 or more.

With the rapid growth of data center scale and quantity, especially the promotion of dual carbon targets, reducing energy consumption in data centers has become an urgent challenge. In order to deal with this problem, the data center industry has begun actively exploring the use of natural cooling sources and introducing new technologies to optimize energy efficiency, thereby reducing energy consumption and improving overall system energy efficiency. In particular, evaporative cooling technology can fully utilize natural cooling sources and improve the energy efficiency of traditional refrigeration equipment, and has been widely applied in recent years. For old computer rooms that use air-cooled chilled water air conditioning cooling systems, energy-saving renovations using the integrated cooling station with Aolan's unique patented technology can effectively improve natural utilization time and system energy efficiency.

Project Overview

The data center is located in Nanning City, Guangxi Province, in a single 27 story building with an area of approximately 270m ². The cabinets, air conditioning equipment, cable trays, and cables in the computer room are densely arranged and generate a large amount of heat. There are 6 columns of cabinets arranged in the computer room, of which 4 columns of cabinets have been isolated by cold and hot aisle sealing, using inter column level air conditioning for cooling. The other 2 columns of cabinets are placed separately and cooled using a combination of room level and inter column level air conditioning. The total load of IT equipment in the computer room is 82.81 kW, and the heat generated by the power distribution equipment is 7.35kW; The original air conditioning system in the computer room consisted of air-cooled modular chillers and indoor room level chilled  water precision air conditioners. The air-cooled modular chillers were installed on the roof equipment layer and transported chilled water to the end of the computer room through a water pump.

Renovation plan

In order to reduce the PUE of the computer room and make full use of outdoor low-temperature natural cooling, a dedicated indirect evaporation integrated cooling station for the Aolan data computer room is used to replace the original air-cooled modular chiller to provide a cold water source for the terminal air cooler in the computer room. The indoor terminal precision air conditioner remains unchanged. The integrated cold station includes an evaporative cooling cold water cooling system, an auxiliary compressor supplementary cooling system, a circulating water pump and a detachable plate heat exchanger for primary and secondary side heat exchange, etc., which directly provides cold water to indoor terminal precision air conditioning equipment. The terminal cold water supply and return water temperature is 18℃/24℃. The integrated cold station can provide low-temperature cold water for year-round operation, and the original air-cooled chiller is only used as a backup during equipment maintenance.

The effect shows that the indirect evaporation integrated cold station serves as a cooling source for air conditioning in the data center, making full use of natural cooling. It can freely set the mode switching temperature according to the project design requirements to meet the requirements for year-round cooling use. Based on the local meteorological conditions throughout the year, the low-temperature pure natural cooling energy-saving mode, the medium-temperature mixed refrigeration mode, and the high-temperature auxiliary mechanical compressor deep cooling mode are adopted. Compared with the original air-cooled chiller, the cold source part can save about 50% of energy. Aolan integrated cold station integrates indirect evaporative cooling technology, AI intelligent switching technology, frequency conversion control technology and remote energy consumption collection and analysis technology, providing another efficient and energy-saving solution for the communications industry.