Modern Building Services

20 MODERN BUILDING SERVICES JUNE 2021 FEATURE COOLING & VENTILATION COOLING A s summer temperatures rise each year across the UK, effectively cooling data centres is becoming ever more vital. Technological advancements and reliance on innovations such as 5G and AI across industries means that downtime due to cooling related system failures must be avoided. With the International Data Corporation (IDC) predicting that there will be 175ZB of data stored by 2025 compared to 33ZB in 2018, it is clear that demand for data centres will continue to rise dramatically. This has been further accelerated by Covid-19 as organisations turn to digital means of working and data becomes ever more integral to research and development across all industries. Rising global temperatures mean data centre operators have to make sure that their facility can keep up with cooling requirements to avoid any costly downtime, particularly during summer months. However, as heatwaves become more prevalent and unpredictable, it will be crucial for contractors and consultants to ensure procedures and infrastructure are in place from the construction phase onwards. Free cooling limits A data centre’s cooling infrastructure is critical and there are a variety of methods that are more suited to particular locations or uses, whether that be air or liquid cooling. Usually found in older data centres, mechanical HVAC systems for cooling can be relatively inefficient when it comes to energy consumption, leaving some providers and operators turning to alternative methods. Given that the data centre industry consumes over 200TWh of electricity a year, cooling infrastructure is also required to be as efficient as possible to keep up with stringent environmental targets set by governments and tech companies. An efficient means of non-mechanical temperature control, free cooling uses fresh air blended with recirculating air form within the data centre to efficiently cool the server spaces. Particularly in regions where climates are colder, this method harnesses the already chilled air and helps in the reduction of energy consumption. As the environmental impact of data centres continues to be scrutinised, for the UK and Ireland as well as colder climates such as the Nordics region, this plays a key role in delivering greener data centres. However, facilities that use free coolingmay find that, during summer months, their systems could be limited when coping with increasing temperatures or heatwaves. Free cooling can begin to reach its threshold as the ambient temperature reaches above 25oC at which point the server rooms risk becoming overheated. With the risk of downtime looming over data centre professionals, onus is falling on designers and consultants to help mitigated the situation fromearly on in the lifecycle. Billy Durie , Global Head of Sector – Data Centres at Aggreko, explores the impact climate change is having on cooling and the legislation that contractors and consultants in the sector must be aware of. Maintaining compliance while cooling data centres