The new data center in Valencia, Spain, operated by international information technology provider KIO Networks, will be the first facility in the country to use 100% natural refrigerants, with CO2 supplied by Danish OEM Advansor.2 (R744) Base cooling and air conditioning system.
The system consists of two Advansor medium temperature SteelXL units and three MiniBooster units. In total, it provides 1.3MW (369.6TR) of cooling capacity for servers and 150kW (42.7TR) of cooling capacity for data center air conditioning. The waste heat produced by the data center’s cooling equipment is recovered and sold to the local district heating system for use in nearby buildings.
To improve system efficiency, Advansor added permanent magnet motors to all 12 compressors in the system, which it says guarantees an additional 7-8% energy savings.
Details of the project were shared by the manufacturer in a case study.
1,000 meters construction2 (10,763 feet2) The data center will begin operations in February 2023, and KIO Networks said in a February 2024 blog post that it expects to begin operations “in just a few months.”
Technical support
To ensure that the equipment was “fully adapted to the climate and environment,” Advancer conducted on-site commissioning. We estimate that this can lead to energy savings of up to 18%. The manufacturer also provided technical training to his KIO Networks technicians at its factory and training center in Denmark.
“The training was conducted in Spanish by our experienced after-sales engineers,” the manufacturer explained. “This training guided technicians through real-world work situations and provided them with the know-how on the functionality and structure of new data center solutions.”
resilient system
Data centers are grouped into four different tiers, with tier 4 having the highest expected uptime. According to Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Tier 4 data centers are built for “full fault tolerance,” with independent paths for power and cooling, and require “redundancy in all components.” . (HPE). According to HPE, these data centers have an expected uptime of 99.995% and only 26.3 minutes of downtime per year.
“To ensure resiliency, we provided a fully redundant solution with backup controllers and additional capacity,” said Advansor. “This solution also includes an Advansor emergency cooling unit[, which] Maintains pressure on the system in case the rack goes down due to an emergency or power outage. ”
The emergency cooling unit prevents loss of refrigerant in the event of system failure, the manufacturer added.
C.O.2 Inside the data center
As the use of HFCs is phased out under the Kigali Amendment and various regional and national laws (such as the EU F-Gas Regulation and the US Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act), end-users, including data centers, The number is increasing. Need to move to natural refrigerants such as CO2.
To meet this growing demand, more manufacturers are entering the market for natural refrigerant-based refrigeration technology for data center applications.
For example, in December 2022, US-Canadian manufacturer M&M Carnot, which was acquired by Johnson Controls in June 2023, announced plans to launch higher capacity CO2.2 Cooling unit for data center.
The manufacturer published a white paper earlier that year to help data center owners replace high-GWP refrigerants with CO.2 Alternative proposal.
According to M&M Carnot, R744-based systems can reduce data center energy consumption and costs, as well as environmental impact. M&M Carnot said in its report that the CO:2 This cooling system is 12 times more economical than systems using HFC and can save up to 90% in energy consumption than traditional systems.
sustainable data center
KIO Networks aims to become Spain’s most sustainable cloud services and solutions provider, with the use of natural refrigerants and the reuse of data center waste heat as key focuses.
“Natural refrigerants like CO”2 It is the only refrigerant that is non-toxic, does not deplete the ozone layer, does not negatively impact drinking water, and has a global warming potential of 1,” Advansor explained in a case study. “Therefore, it was the perfect choice for KIO Networks’ new data center.”
“Natural refrigerants like CO”2 The refrigerant is non-toxic, does not deplete the ozone layer, does not harm drinking water, and is the only refrigerant with a global warming potential of 1. Therefore, it was the perfect choice for KIO Networks’ new data center. ”
advancer
“Servers in data centers generate a lot of heat and require a lot of cooling. [and] The cooling process also generates a large amount of excess heat,” the OEM added.
This integrated approach to an all-in-one “climate solution” has been a key focus for Advancer in recent years.
KIO Networks is also committed to using 100% renewable electricity, with the new Valencia data center using a total of 71 geothermal energy sources to provide renewable energy for the cooling system to further reduce environmental impact. A well has been installed.
