Meteorological assessment and implementation of an air-side free-cooling system for data centers in Chile

Abstract

Data center energy consumption in Latin America has in-creased considerably during last years. According to Datacen-ter dynamics, energy requirements during 2016 were expectedto be around 3.85 GW. In Chile, the data center industry grew14% between 2009 and 2010, whereas energy consumptionincreased 21.4% between 2012 and 2013. For this reason,many data centers in the country have started to evaluateefficient alternatives to reduce energy consumption such asthe use of air containment techniques, air-side and water-sidecooling systems. To date, existing free-cooling maps do notprovide information about available hours during the year forimplementing either air-side or water-side cooling systems indata centers in South America. This paper presents a thermo-dynamic analysis aimed to evaluate the potential use of air-sidefree-cooling systems in the Chilean data center industry. First,temperature and Relative Humidity (RH) variations, duringthree years, were obtained at 29 different stations throughoutthe entire country. The objective was to identify regions inChile that meet data center thermal requirements proposedby the ASHRAE. Fiber-optic availability was also consideredduring the analysis. The thermodynamic model considered awhite room with a thermal load of 20 kW, for which an airtreatment unit was incorporated with the objective of providingcold air at 18◦and 60% RH. An air treatment system wascalculated at three different locations in Chile. These locationswere selected since they offer high availability of fiber-opticconnections (Chacalluta, Arica y Parinacota Region), strategicposition for companies (Quinta Normal, Metropolitan Region),and low temperatures through the year (Carlos Ibanez, AysenRegion). Preliminary results have demonstrated that Chile is arelatively humid country. For this reason, cooling air must bedehumidified most of the time. The results also showed thateven when low temperatures can be found in Carlos Ibanez,both Chacalluta and Quinta Normal offer excellent possibilitiesfor the data centers industry. These two last locations offermore fiber-optic connections and temperature variations thatlay within the range established by the ASHRAE.