Data centre capacity is growing with the increasing number of IP connections, traffic and need for storage, generating large hyper data centres more often.
A newly published market study from BSRIA shows that this kind of hyper data centre is very open to deploying ‘new’ technologies opting for a combination of free cooling, liquid cooling and chilled-water cooling, thus changing the market for precision air conditioning.
The largest market is North America, accounting for around 40 per cent of the global data centre cooling market, followed by China which accounts for just under a third. Furthermore, in China a massive cloud computing development program planned by the Government is expected to more than double China’s data centre capacity by 2016, compared to 2013 (source: Broad Group).
Thanks to its leading solutions and extensive experience in high-end data centre applications, Climaveneta has been appointed to supply the 28MW capacity cooling system for the Chinese Super Computing Centre (Wuxi). It comes from a joint investment established in 2006 by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Wuxi Government and is one of the most advanced high-performance computing platforms in the world.
The new supercomputer performance at 100 petaFLOPS (Floating-point Operations Per Second) ranks among the fastest worldwide and requires massive cooling at very precise conditions, with the utmost reliability.
The owner in fact imposed extremely strict requirements for the cooling system selection, such as water temperature stability, water collection, adaptability to the variable primary flow system (VPF) and the unit’s equipment with a proportional control valve to adjust the cooling water flow and ensure the pressure difference.
To satisfy all these needs Climaveneta delivered 15 TECS2-W /H water-cooled chillers equipped with magnetic levitation, oil free VFD compressors, with the best Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio (ESEER), close to ten.
Furthermore, the Climaveneta cooling system, combined with further eco sustainable technologies adopted, such as free cooling and VPF, has contributed to cut the entire energy consumption of the data centre by 45%, compared to traditional design, complying with the stringent energy efficiency requirements set by applied environmental standards.
Mauro Montello, sales and marketing director at Climaveneta, said: “Climaveneta’s participation in this project confirms our leadership in high efficiency data centre cooling applications and adds up to a long list of very relevant installations worldwide. We are proud to contribute to China’s digital transformation with our innovative IT cooling solutions.”
In addition Climaveneta provided more than 50 units of top efficiency cooling systems for the largest Tier 4 financial Data Centre in Asia, the China Construction Bank IDC, established in the Beijing Financial Disaster Recovery Foundation.
The total land area is around 136,200sq m, and its total construction volume is about 283,971sq m. The building is classified as a multi-storey building with Grade A fire resistance performance and a nine degree seismic intensity, and has obtained the Luban Award and 2-Star certification by Green building certificate standard GB/T 50378-2006.
The whole data centre (including the diesel generator room, data room, central command centre, support area of data centre access) and its operation centre are certificated by LEED and obtained the silver level award.
Climaveneta has been appointed as the exclusive supplier to deliver 48 free cooling chillers, four water-cooled heat pumps and one air-cooled heat pump for more than 70 MegaWatts total cooling and heating capacity. A ten-year service contract completes the supply.
At CCB data centre free cooling operations start when the external temperature is 15°, substantially extending the energy saving advantages offered by this technology. The heat rejected by the chillers is recovered by heat pumps, providing free heating to the 20,000sq m office area next to the data centre, with no CO2 emissions on site.
In other words, by installing a Climaveneta heat pump or chiller it is possible to cool the datacentre and to recover the wasted heat to provide the comfort in the close-by rooms or for domestic hot water production. In this way it is possible to combine perfect comfort and zero energy waste, improving the building’s green certification rating and obtaining a substantial annual savings.
In this case by adopting air source free cooling chillers the data centre does not depend on water availability, further increasing infrastructure resiliency . Ensuring zero water consumption, special unit design, and eliminating the need for glycol in the cooling circuit, all serve to complete the excellence in sustainability. Lastly, roof installation maximises the internal space available for servers.
Both Wuxi and the China Construction Bank projects demonstrate the strength and quality of Climaveneta’s presence in the most demanding data centre projects worldwide and confirm the company’s strong position to benefit from the next wave of hyper data centre developments.
Boasting experience of 45 years in manufacturing units for industrial and commercial applications, Climaveneta’s range presents itself as the ideal solution to match the most demanding requirements of data centre designers and managers in terms of reliability, efficiency, flexibility and the lowest cost of ownership.