Hybrid cooled data center using above ambient liquid cooling

Customers who operate large data centers are looking for new ways to reduce their energy consumption and improve the ability to support higher compute density. An approach to liquid cooling that uses warm water instead of chilled water to cool system components and eliminate or greatly reduce the need for chillers in the data center is described in this paper. This change would have the dual effect of reducing the energy consumption of the cooling infrastructure by as much as 50% while increasing supported power densities (relative to air cooled solutions). In this paper is a description of the hybrid data center concept. An analytical model is constructed of both the hybrid data center and a baseline data center using heat transfer fundamental calculations and equipment data sheets. Variations in environmental conditions and the percentage of heat removed with liquid are investigated. The overall energy savings for these variations and the estimated cost savings are reported.