Low-GWP Options For Information Facilities

Pushed by regulatory motion, the info heart trade is present process a major transition to low-GWP refrigerants. Underneath the AIM Act, the Environmental Safety Company (EPA) is mandating that new cooling gear for information facilities should use refrigerants with a GWP of lower than 700 by January 1, 2027. Some states, corresponding to California, Washington, and New York, have established even earlier compliance deadlines, with California main the way in which, requiring a GWP of lower than 750 in new gear by January 1, 2025.

In mild of those regulatory shifts, new low-GWP refrigerants are rising that not solely cut back the environmental influence related to conventional refrigerants, but in addition preserve the essential efficiency and reliability mandatory for information heart operations.

Cooling Gear Decisions

There are 4 primary kinds of information facilities, and every has particular necessities for the kind of cooling gear it employs, mentioned Stephen Hueckel, market supervisor of HVACR applied sciences Americas at Copeland.

“Edge information facilities, which function closest to finish customers, are a lot smaller in dimension and would seemingly use a pc room air-con (CRAC) unit, and even one thing small like a wall-mount unit,” he mentioned. “Extra conventional information facilities, often known as enterprise information facilities, are additionally primarily pushed by CRAC items. Colocation information facilities — the place the area is occupied by a number of tenants — are available in assorted sizes, so they could use quite a lot of applied sciences. The most important information heart kind — often known as a hyperscale information heart — is usually constructed by firms like Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft, primarily utilizing air- or water-cooled chillers.”

Along with facility dimension, the selection of cooling gear is influenced by energy density and geographical location, in addition to labor sources, elevation, and seismic elements, mentioned Sean Crain, consulting engineer account government at Johnson Controls. For these causes, he mentioned it is extremely troublesome to standardize the design.

“Within the mission-critical information heart area, customary warmth rejection gear consists of primarily air- and water-cooled chillers,” mentioned Crain. “There are additionally water-side free cooling, direct evaporator, and DX system designs, particularly on legacy websites. For cooling the white area, the options we’re seeing most proper now are using air-cooled gear (together with CRACs, CRAHs, and fan coil partitions), then DX techniques, and rising direct-to-chip and immersion applied sciences.”

Ron Spangler, senior supervisor at Vertiv, added that gear present in information facilities can vary from floor-mounted cut up DX techniques with excessive smart warmth ratio to self-contained DX techniques put in open air on grade to floor-mounted chilled water air handlers with chillers.

“Smaller websites have a tendency to make use of split-system DX gear, somewhat than putting in massive, chilled water vegetation with air handlers,” mentioned Spangler. “Nevertheless, split-system and self-contained DX techniques utilizing refined economization applied sciences are widespread even at massive websites to permit for speedy deployment of extra gear, so cooling gear might be pay-as-you-go, as an alternative of putting in massive cooling vegetation up entrance.”

Liquid Cooling

Michael Strouboulis, enterprise improvement director for information facilities at Danfoss Local weather Options, predicts that precision air CRAC or chilled water CRAH (laptop room air dealing with) cooling techniques will proceed to be the chosen cooling strategies for low rack energy density information facilities for a while. Nevertheless, he famous that as high-performance computing, synthetic intelligence, machine studying, IoT, and different applied sciences advance, rack energy densities will improve, and liquid cooling will turn out to be important to making sure reliability and efficiency.

“For instance, CRAC/CRAH and row-based containment cooling options are best as much as 15 to twenty kW, however there’s a level, perhaps round 20 kW, previous which they’re now not cost-effective or environment friendly,” mentioned Strouboulis. “At that time, there are different methods that cool nearer to the supply of warmth and are situated very near the rack doorways and even nearer, cooling microchips instantly by direct-to-chip or immersion liquid cooling.”

Certainly, liquid cooling is an rising expertise that may assist enhance the vitality effectivity and efficiency of information heart cooling techniques. This kind of new expertise is important, as a result of air-cooled techniques usually are not anticipated to have the ability to meet the cooling wants of next-generation chips, mentioned Brandon Marshall, world advertising supervisor for automotive and immersion cooling at The Chemours Firm. Based mostly on publicly obtainable roadmaps, he famous that air-cooled gear won’t be able to chill these elements as early as 2026.

Marshall defined that liquid cooling makes use of a fluid — corresponding to water or a dielectric fluid — in direct contact with or via a warmth exchanger to chill the heat-generating elements of the servers and take away warmth extra successfully than air. This kind of expertise might be divided into two classes: single-phase and two-phase.

“Single-phase liquid cooling makes use of a pump to flow into the liquid via a closed loop system, whereas two-phase liquid cooling makes use of a section change materials, corresponding to a refrigerant, that evaporates and condenses because it absorbs and releases warmth,” mentioned Marshall. “Proper now, a great deal of trade consideration has been turned to two-phase immersion cooling (2-PIC), the frontrunner for being essentially the most energy-efficient expertise for information heart cooling. 2-PIC can be an answer that brings many different advantages for right this moment’s high-performance computing and environmental calls for.”

Low-GWP Options

In relation to low-GWP refrigerants, the cooling techniques utilized in information facilities not solely must be designed to be appropriate and optimized, but in addition must be dependable, mentioned Strouboulis. Whereas the price of the cooling system is a significant consideration in new builds and retrofits, uptime surpasses value and drives all choices, he mentioned, including that there isn’t any room for disruptions brought on by malfunctioning gear in a knowledge heart.

“One of the best alternative for vitality effectivity for cooling or warmth elimination from information facilities is in elevating the cooling temperature, such that much less work is required to reject or reuse that rejected warmth,” mentioned Strouboulis. “The choice of the precise low-GWP refrigerant needs to be such that it’ll permit this rise in cooling temperature and permit warmth restoration and reuse, whereas making certain dependable and uninterrupted operation.”

In response to Strouboulis, Danfoss is prepared for the refrigerant transition, and all of its compressors, warmth exchangers, sensors, and circulate controls can be found and have been certified for information heart cooling techniques utilizing low-GWP refrigerants.

Johnson Controls can be prepared for the transition to low-GWP refrigerants, mentioned Crain, with low-GWP choices for all of its utilized and business gear for information facilities. This consists of the York YVAM air-cooled magnetic bearing centrifugal chiller, which is particularly designed for hyperscale and colocation information heart functions and makes use of the refrigerant, R-1234ze, which has a GWP of lower than 10.

Whereas it’s pretty simple for house owners of recent information facilities to pick cooling gear that makes use of low-GWP refrigerants, transitioning to those alternate options in current services presents a singular problem.

“A number of the colocation market takes a phased method to constructing out. So, we’re seeing section one and two using gear with typical refrigerants, and the expectation to construct out phases three and 4 with a really related piece of apparatus,” mentioned Crain. “Nevertheless, when information heart gear makes use of a unique refrigerant, there could also be modest adjustments in product footprint, capability, and effectivity. It is doable that section three of a knowledge heart will use a unique chiller from section two, which might finally have an effect on the cooling system design and working situations.”

Vertiv is within the means of redesigning all of its product traces to be obtainable with low-GWP refrigerants by early 2025. This may permit the corporate to supply gear for states corresponding to California, in addition to meet the sustainability necessities of shoppers who need to transition to low-GWP refrigerants earlier than it’s required by regulation, mentioned Spangler.

Within the U.S., he expects lower-GWP refrigerants corresponding to R-454B and R-32 refrigerants will probably be used for air-cooled gear, whereas chillers might use R-513A and R-1234ze. Spangler doesn’t consider will probably be sensible to retrofit current gear with any of those new refrigerants, as it could require adjustments in elements like compressors, shut-off valves, and refrigerant leak detection sensors. As well as, the gear might must be recertified within the discipline for security company itemizing.

“We additionally anticipate that present refrigerants will probably be obtainable for a number of years, since there will probably be an rising refrigerant reclaim marketplace for them, given the ramp down in new manufacturing of those refrigerants,” mentioned Spangler. “For current and new information facilities, prospects and contractors might want to set up gear utilizing low-GWP refrigerants by January 1, 2027. Contractors might want to procure gear with manufacturing and set up lead time in thoughts to make certain the gear is put in by that date. California at present requires set up by January 1, 2025, so new cooling gear will must be ordered properly earlier than then.”

Basically, Chemours expects the transfer to next-generation, low-GWP refrigerants to have little or no influence on the operation and efficiency of apparatus utilized in information facilities. Crucial factor to notice about this transition, mentioned Marshall, is the change in security designation from an ASHRAE-classified A1 refrigerant to an A2L (mildly flammable) refrigerant.

One of many A2L refrigerants that Chemours presents as a alternative for air-cooled techniques is Opteo XL41 (R-454B). With a GWP of 466 (AR4), a discount of greater than 77% vs. R-410A, and comparable properties to R-410A, Chemours expects this answer to turn out to be very fashionable upon deployment in 2025, mentioned Marshall.

One other low-GWP refrigerant within the pipeline at Chemours is Opteon& 2P50, a developmental dielectric fluid that has a GWP of 10. In response to Marshall, “It was particularly created to optimize the efficiency of digital elements in a 2-PIC system. Opteon 2P50 is at present pre-commercial pending regulatory approval.”

To assist information heart finish customers undertake the subsequent era of protected, dependable, and extremely environment friendly compressor applied sciences, Copeland has optimized all its main product platforms to be used with A2L refrigerants, mentioned Hueckel. This consists of the lately launched oil-free centrifugal compressor with Aero-lift bearing expertise. This compressor platform is optimized to be used with lower-GWP A2L refrigerants together with R-515B, R-1234ze, and R-513A, and is being developed for the 50- to 200-ton capability vary.

“The compressor platform delivers an environment friendly and dependable oil-free answer for the air- and water-cooled chiller market,” mentioned Hueckel. “For OEMs, it gives a versatile platform from which they’ll simply customise and adapt to the wants of particular functions — from information facilities to warmth restoration to well being care services and high-ambient situations. The product will probably be obtainable in summer season of this 12 months.”

As well as, Copeland’s scroll compressor lineup is optimized to be used with R-454B and R-32 and consists of not solely fastened pace, but in addition two-stage, digital, and variable pace.

“We see all kinds of scroll choices being utilized in a mess of information heart sorts,” mentioned Hueckel. “We’re additionally seeing some Copeland scroll compressors for R-134a transitioning to R-513A being deployed in information facilities.”

HVAC contractors will play a key half in serving to their information heart prospects transition to low-GWP refrigerants, which is why Hueckel means that they receive extra coaching on lower-GWP and A2L refrigerants.

“This may assist them choose, set up, fee, preserve, and repair the brand new gear put in in a brand new information heart or retrofit utility,” he mentioned. “Contractors also needs to educate themselves in regards to the newest refrigerant laws and perceive the state necessities for numerous HVAC functions.”

Acquiring this training is essential, as time is of the essence. Whereas OEMs have till 2027 to fulfill the <700 gwp requirement in information heart cooling techniques, numerous states are rolling out their very own transition schedules, starting with california subsequent 12 months. addition, some house owners could also be trying to transfer lower-gwp refrigerants earlier than the mandated deadline, so contractors ought to prepared assist them discover greatest answer that meets explicit wants.< p>700>