Available online at www.sciencedirect.

com

ScienceDirect
Availableonline
Available onlineatatwww.sciencedirect.com
www.sciencedirect.com
Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

ScienceDirect
ScienceDirect
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

Energy
EnergyProcedia
Procedia143 (2017) 000–000
00 (2017) 410–415
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

World Engineers Summit – Applied Energy Symposium & Forum: Low Carbon Cities & Urban
Energy Joint Conference, WES-CUE 2017, 19–21 July 2017, Singapore

Free cooling technologies

The 15th International for data
Symposium centers:
on District energy
Heating saving
and Cooling
mechanism and applications
Assessing the feasibility of using the heat demand-outdoor
temperature function
Yin Zhangfora,b
a long-term
, Zhiyuan districtZhang
Weib, Mingshan heat c*demand forecast
a
School of Architecture and Environment, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
a,b,c a a b c c
I. Andrić c
b
*, A. Pina , P. Ferrão , J. Fournier ., B. Lacarrière , O. Le Corre
Department of Building Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Research Institute of Nationalities, Southwest Minzu University, Chengdu 610041, China
a
IN+ Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research - Instituto Superior Técnico, Av. Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal
b
Veolia Recherche & Innovation, 291 Avenue Dreyfous Daniel, 78520 Limay, France
c
Département Systèmes Énergétiques et Environnement - IMT Atlantique, 4 rue Alfred Kastler, 44300 Nantes, France
Abstract

Air conditioning and cooling systems account for about 40 % of total electricity usage in data centers. Free cooling is a novel and
Abstract technology that can decrease the load ratio of electrical chiller and save cooling energy consumption accordingly,
promising
through making full use of natural free cooling source. In this paper, four typical free cooling systems are analyzed and compared,
toDistrict heating
show their networks main
mechanisms, are commonly addressed
features, energy saving ineffects
the literature as one situations
and applicable of the most effective solutions
respectively. (1) Directfor decreasing
fresh the
air cooling
isgreenhouse gas emissions
of the highest free cooling from the building
potential. sector.it These
However, is hard systems
to meet require
indoorhigh
air investments
quality demandwhich aretoreturned
due through the heat
the indoor-outdoor air
sales. Due
mixing. to the changed
(2) Rotating wheel heat climate conditions
exchanger can beandused building renovation
for indirect policies,
free cooling, heatindoor
since demandand in the future
outdoor air flowcould decrease,
in different
prolonging the investment return period.
paths for heat exchange. While its power usage effectiveness (PUE) increases inevitably under the same climatic conditions. (3)
The pipe
Heat maincanscopebe of this paperwith
integrated is torack
assess
backtheplate
feasibility of using
to enhance heatthetransfer
heat demand – outdoor
with free coolingtemperature
sources. Itsfunction
cooling for heat demand
efficiency can
forecast.byThe
increase 3-5district of Alvalade,
times compared located in heat
to traditional Lisbon (Portugal),(4)was
exchangers. In used as a case
water-based freestudy.
coolingThesystem,
districta isheat
consisted
exchangerof 665
is
buildings
installed in that varywith
parallel in both construction
electrical period
chiller and and typology.
the system can workThreeunderweather scenarios
three modes (low, to
according medium,
differenthigh)
outdoorandtemperature.
three district
renovationthescenarios
Increasing load ratiowere developed
of free cooling can(shallow, intermediate,
decrease PUE and save deep). To estimate
electricity usage.the error, obtained
In practical heat demand
applications, the coolingvalues were
system
compared
design with centers
for data results from a dynamic
depends heat demand
on various factors, model,
such aspreviously
indoor airdeveloped and validatedlocal
quality requirement, by the authors.conditions, energy
climatic
The results
saving showed
demands, roomthat when
space, only investment
capital weather change is considered,
and operation costs.the margin of error could be acceptable for some applications
(the error in annual demand was lower than 20% for all weather scenarios considered). However, after introducing renovation
©scenarios,
2017 Thethe error value
Authors. increased
Published up to 59.5%
by Elsevier Ltd. (depending on the weather and renovation scenarios combination considered).
The value of
Peer-review slope
under coefficient of
responsibility increased on average
the scientific committee within the World
of the range Engineers
of 3.8% up to 8%– per
Summit decade,
Applied that Symposium
Energy corresponds&to the
decrease
Forum: Lowin Carbon
the number Citiesof&heating hours ofJoint
Urban Energy 22-139h during the heating season (depending on the combination of weather and
Conference.
renovation scenarios considered). On the other hand, function intercept increased for 7.8-12.7% per decade (depending on the
coupled scenarios).
Keywords: The values suggested
Data center; Refrigeration; couldFree
Air conditioning; be used to Energy
cooling; modifyefficiency
the function parameters for the scenarios considered, and
improve the accuracy of heat demand estimations.

© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of The 15th International Symposium on District Heating and
Cooling.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +86-28-85522790; fax: +86-28-85524605.
E-mail address: swunzms@126.com
Keywords: Heat demand; Forecast; Climate change
1876-6102 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the World Engineers Summit – Applied Energy Symposium &
Forum: Low Carbon Cities & Urban Energy Joint Conference.
1876-6102 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of The 15th International Symposium on District Heating and Cooling.
1876-6102 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the World Engineers Summit – Applied Energy Symposium & Forum: Low
Carbon Cities & Urban Energy Joint Conference.
10.1016/j.egypro.2017.12.703
 Yin Zhang et al. / Energy Procedia 143 (2017) 410–415 411
2 Author name / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

1. Introduction

During recent years, information communication and internet technologies are undergoing a dramatically fast
development [1]. Thus the increasing demand for data processing caused a rapid growth in the data centers
containing IT equipment, rack servers and related devices. It is reported that the total energy consumption in data
centers doubled from 2005 to 2010 [2]. The IT devices are often of huge heat emissions and show high demands for
temperature and humidity control in data centers, so that the cooling and air conditioning system is indispensable.
According to a recent survey, the refrigeration and air conditioning system accounts for about 40 % of total
electricity usage for data centers [3]. Therefore, in order to reduce the energy consumption of air conditioning is of
great importance in energy efficiency for the whole data center.
There are many effective ways to save cooling energy usage in data centers, such as indoor air distribution
optimization, heat transfer enhancement for rack servers, thermal performance improvement of chillers and so on [4].
Zimmermann [5] applied the hot water system to refrigeration system in IT rooms and established the energy model.
Ebrahimi [6] introduced different cooling systems according to working conditions and found that energy efficiency
could be increased substantially through low grade energy recovery. Marcinichen [7] proposed the two phase
cooling technologies and put forward the method to evaluate heat recovery ratio. In addition, free cooling is a novel
and promising technology that can decrease the load ratio of electrical chiller and save cooling energy consumption
accordingly, through making full use of natural free cooling source [8]. Because of the high efficiency and low
emissions, free cooling technologies utilized in data centers causes more and more attentions during recent years.
In this paper, four typical free cooling technologies and corresponding air conditioning systems are analyzed and
compared, to show their mechanisms, main features, energy saving effects and applicable situations respectively.
This work is of significance in guiding the design of refrigeration system with free cooling technologies for practical
data centers.

2. Air Conditioning Systems in Data Center

IT devices always show high necessities in working conditions, especially the indoor temperature (22±2 oC) and
humidity (50±5 %) control. Therefore, the air conditioning system is of great significance in space cooling for such
data centers, considering the huge and consecutive heat emissions [9]. Fig. 1 shows the typical refrigeration system
for data centers. The electrical chiller is used to produce low temperature water in its evaporator and then the chilled
water is delivered to the terminal air handling units to take away the emission heat from racks. On the other hand,
the condensation heat of the chiller is exhausted to the ambient through the cooling tower.

Cooling tower Chiller Indoor handling unit Rack

Evaporator
Condenser

Fig. 1. Typical refrigeration system in data centers.

Such refrigeration system constitutes the dominant part of energy consumption in data centers, except for the IT
devices themselves. Power usage effectiveness (PUE) is often used to evaluate the energy consumption level for
data centers [4].

PU total PU IT  PU AC  PU else (1)

PUE
 
PU IT PU IT
412 Yin Zhang et al. / Energy Procedia 143 (2017) 410–415
Author name / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000 3

In Eq. (1), PUtotal and PUIT represent the power usage amounts of the overall data center and the IT equipment
respectively. Therefore, a lower PUE value means that the data center is more energy saving. Hence, reducing
energy consumption of air conditioning system (PUAC) proves to be an effective way to decrease PUE and save
power usage for the whole data center. Therein, free cooling technology is one of the most promising approaches.

3. Typical Free Cooling Technologies

3.1. Direct fresh air cooling

As Fig. 2 shows, when the outdoor temperature is low, the fresh air can be brought in directly through ventilation
system for free cooling. Such a system can make most use of the ambient free cooling potentials without any extra
refrigeration equipment. Nonetheless, due to the indoor-outdoor air mixing, it is hard to meet the indoor air quality
(IAQ) requirement for direct fresh air cooling system. Thus such a ventilation system often work with other fresh air
handling equipment, including dehumidification device, filters and air cleaners, to remove moistures, dusts and other
pollutants, which will inevitably increase the primary and operation costs. As a result, Although of high energy
efficiency and low PUE value, the direct fresh air cooling systems are merely applied in developed countries, such
as Microsoft data center in Dublin and Hewlett-Packard data center in London, where direct fresh air cooling
systems are installed with advanced indirect evaporation cooling equipment for air cleaning (PUE=1.08).

Fresh air handling unit

Racks

Data center

Fig. 2. Direct fresh air cooling system.

Exhaust fan Condenser Air cleaner Filter

Outdoor

Supply fan

Filter Wheel Evaporater Indoor

Fig. 3. Free cooling system based on rotating wheel heat exchanger.

3.2. Rotating wheel heat exchanger

To solve the indoor air quality problem of the aforementioned system, heat exchangers can be added between the
indoor and outdoor airs. Therein, rotating wheels are widely used. Fig. 3 gives the schematic diagram of rotating
wheel heat exchangers where the wheel keeps rotating at a speed of 10-12 r/min and the airs flows into different
paths to avoid mixing [10]. Then the indoor air flows back to the data center for space cooling after heat exchange
 Yin Zhang et al. / Energy Procedia 143 (2017) 410–415 413
4 Author name / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

whereas the heated outdoor air is exhausted. Compared to the direct fresh air cooling, such a system based on the
rotating wheel heat exchanger is in fact an indirect free cooling system, which can significantly improve the indoor
environment. However, due to the extra medium heat exchange process, the free cooling effect of such an indirect
free cooling system decreases inevitably under the same climatic conditions, increasing PUE value as a result. So in
order to guarantee a reliable refrigeration system, electrical cooling equipment is often integrated with the rotating
wheel heat exchanger. For instance, in data center of China Mobile Company at Harbin, only if outdoor temperature
is lower than 23 oC, does the rotating wheel system work. Otherwise, the data center is refrigerated via electrical
cooling. In addition, such a rotating wheel heat exchange system usually occupies a large space because of the
relatively low air-air heat transfer efficiency, which also limits its applications.

3.3. Heat pipe back rack

Heat pipe is a kind of heat exchanger, where phase change materials are used to facilitate the high-efficient heat
transfer. Integrating the heat pipe heat exchangers with racks is favorable for heat transfer enhancement between the
high temperature racks and the free cooling sources. As Fig. 4 shows, multiple heat pipes are packed into a board
installed at the rack back. Compared to traditional heat exchangers, the cooling efficiency of such heat pipe rack
back can be increased by 3-5 times, which can decrease the PUE value dramatically. For example, the annual
electricity usage amount of IT devices in China Mobile data center in Jiangsu province is 6.83×105 kWh. After heat
pipe back racks taking place of traditional ones, the annual electricity consumption decreases considerably from
1.37×106 kWh to 1.07×106 kWh, making PUE decrease from 2.00 to 1.49 as a result.

Heat pipe back

Terminal
devices Cooling tower

Heat
exchanger

Pump

Rack Rack Chiller Pump

Fig. 4. Heat pipe back rack. Fig. 5. Water-based free cooling system.

3.4. Water free cooling system

As Fig. 5 shows, the main difference between water-based free cooling system and traditional air conditioning
system is that a heat exchanger is installed in parallel with electrical chiller to make full use of free cooling
capacities from cooling tower. In other words, according to climatic conditions (especially the wet bulb temperature),
the whole system can work under three different modes: (1) when the outdoor temperature is low (winter), the
cooling water can be used to produce chilled water directly through the heat exchanger and the chiller can be turned
off, so that the system works under “free cooling” mode; (2) when the outdoor temperature is high (summer), the
chiller is activated instead while the cooling tower is only used to handle the condensation heat, so that the system
works under “electrical cooling” mode; (3) when the outdoor temperature is moderate (spring and fall), the chiller
and heat exchanger work together in parallel, so the system works under “free cooling + electrical cooling” mode.
Therefore, the working conditions of the water-based free cooling system are greatly impacted by the ambient
temperature variation. Taking the HUAWEI dater center at Langfang (a northern city in China) as an example (Fig.
414 Yin Zhang et al. / Energy Procedia 143 (2017) 410–415
Author name / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000 5

6), electrical cooling, free cooling, electrical cooling + free cooling account for 51%, 32%, 17% of time respectively
in one year, resulting in that the annual average PUE value arrives at 1.35. Based on the previous analysis, the
energy saving effect of such systems mainly derives from the free cooling. Hence, increasing the load ratio of free
cooling can decrease PUE and save electricity usage.

30
Wet bulb temperature/oC

20
Electrical cooling
10
Electrical cooling+Free cooling

0 Free cooling

-10
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000
Time/h
Fig. 6. Free cooling system based on rotating wheel heat exchanger.

Table 1. Comparison between typical free cooling systems in data centers.

Direct fresh Rotating wheel Heat pipe Water-based
air cooling heat exchanger back rack free cooling
Air mixing Yes No No No
Air quality resuirement High Medium Low Low
Indoor humidity influence High Medium Low Low
Occupied room space Small Large Large Large
Electricity usage units Fan Fan Fan Pump
Power consumption Low High Low High
Primary investment 800 RMB/kW 1000 RMB/kW 1380RMB/kW 1250 RMB/kW
Maintenance Filter, Fan Fan None Heat exchanger
Key technologies Air cleaning; Humidity control; Heat pipe; Temperature control
Humidification Heat exchanger; Anti-freezing Anti-freezing
Applicable situations High IAQ demand; High IAQ demand; Large cooling load;
Low IAQ demand
Enough space; Tout≤15 oC Limited space; Tout ≤ Tchilled water +1 oC

4. Conclusions

Decreasing the electricity usage of refrigeration system through free cooling technology is greatly important for
energy saving in data centers. In this paper, four typical free cooling systems are introduced and analyzed, including
direct fresh air cooling, rotating wheel heat exchanger, heat pipe back rack and water-based free cooling system.
Furthermore, the comparison among these free cooling systems is conducted to show their mechanisms, main
features, energy saving effects and applicable situations respectively (Table 1). In practical applications, the cooling
system design for data centers depends on various factors, such as indoor air quality requirement, local climatic
conditions, energy saving demands, room space, capital investment and operation costs. This work is of significance
in guiding the design of refrigeration systems with free cooling technologies for practical data centers.

Acknowledgements

This research is financed by China Scholarship Council (201706245001), Sichuan Science and Technology
Program (17YYJC0994) and Sichuan University Post Doctor Research Program (2017SCU12020).
 Yin Zhang et al. / Energy Procedia 143 (2017) 410–415 415
6 Author name / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

References

[1] Santiago, I. and Sergio, N. (2016) "Scheduling energy efficient data centers using renewable energy." Electronics, 71.5 (2016): 1-16.
[2] Sharma, N., Barker, S., Irwin, D., et al. (2011) "Blink: managing server clusters on intermittent power." ACM SIGARCH Computer
Architecture News, 39.1 (2011): 185-198.
[3] Almoli, A., Thompsion, A., Kapur, N., et al. (2012) "Computational fluid dynamic investigation of liquid rack cooling in data centres."
Applied Energy, 89 (2012): 150-155.
[4] Alfonso, C. and Giulio, P. (2015) "Cooling systems in data centers: state of art and emerging technologies." Energy Procedia, 83 (2015): 484-
493.
[5] Zimmermann, S., Meijer, I., Tiwari, M.K., et al. (2012) "Aquasar: A hot water cooled data center with direct energy reuse." Energy, 43.1
(2012): 237-245.
[6] Ebrahimi, K., Jones, G.F. and Fleischer, A.S. (2014) "A review of data center cooling technology, operating conditions and the corresponding
low-grade waste heat recovery opportunities." Renewable and Sustainable Energy Review, 31 (2014): 622-638.
[7] Marcinichen, J.B., Olivier, J.A. and Thome, J.R. (2012) "On-chip two-phase cooling of data centers: Cooling system and energy recovery
evaluation." Applied Thermal Engineering, 41 (2012): 36-51.
[8] Behzad, N.K., Mohammd, B.M., Seyed, M.H., et al. (2016) "Performance assessment of cooling systems in data centers: methodology and
application of a new thermal metric." Case Studies in Thermal Engineering, 8 (2016): 152-163.
[9] Cho, J., Yang, J. and Park, W. (2014) "Evaluation of air distribution system's air flow performance for cooling energy savings in high-density
data centers." Energy and Buildings, 68 (2014): 270–279.
[10] Tu, R., Liu, X.H. and Jiang, Y. (2013) "Performance comparison between enthalpy recovery wheels and dehumidification wheels."
International Journal of Refrigeration, 36 (2013): 2308-2322.