Today’s exponential increases in computing loads bring proportional increases in power and cooling demand. This makes efficient resource management not just an environmental issue but an organizational imperative. Resource scarcity is already disrupting expansion plans, increasing operational costs and threatening business continuity.
When evaluating any cooling method, data centers need to take a holistic approach to consider the direct and indirect impact of energy and other resources both on and off premise. Organizations need high-quality, efficient solutions at scale so that when workloads evolve, their cooling infrastructure can adapt accordingly.
Why water?
One common misconception is that the best way to reduce an organization’s water footprint is to simply not use water on premise for cooling infrastructure. In some regions and geographies, without more in-depth analysis, this approach may cause a facility to generate larger hydro and power footprints, based solely on the thermodynamics of water itself.
Water can remove more than 3,200 times as much heat as air. Depending on geography, climate and workload, air-cooled, waterless chillers can consume anywhere from 10–30% more power than their water-based counterparts. Think about taking your glove off when it’s freezing outside versus plunging your hand in ice water or jumping into a swimming pool when it’s hot outside versus sitting in front of a fan. In both cases, the water cools faster and more effectively.
Industry challenges
Answering the questions as to whether and when to leverage water as part of data center cooling infrastructure is not as straightforward as it would appear on the surface. However, data centers providers don’t have to go it alone. Collaboration with a cooling- and water-management expert can help data centers understand the complexity of their cooling systems and adapt to rapidly changing demands with confidence, enabling site staff to maintain focus on uptime and daily operations.
Whether a cooling system is being designed for greenfield or brownfield developments, a strategic approach to prudent use of alternative water sources in data centers can produce large gains in operational and environmental efficiency (see Figure 1 below).