As a manufacturer, who provides some of the largest data centers in the world with energy efficient cooling solutions, it is evident that the data center industry has become one of the most energy conscious sectors in business (contra the James Glanz New York Times Piece). The UMP design team regularly meets with very large data center owners who are seeking to reduce their energy usage. In many ways, energy efficiency for large energy users is self-directed. The reason is because when you reduce the operational costs of the facility this translates into increased financial savings. One of the most significant individual categories for energy efficiency is in the area of cooling.
The demand for energy efficient cooling solutions has been followed by an increase in the number of manufacturers who are saying “me too.” This can be both good and bad. It is good when manufacturers are able to provide end users with reliable data center cooling systems that reduce the overall energy used and lower the OPEX. However, an influx of manufacturers in an area can also be a bad thing for end users. This is because in many cases the manufacturers do not have the area expertise in the solutions they are bringing to the market. They may be excellent in providing CRAC’s or off the shelf packaged DX units, but they do not have the expertise of other cooling system design.
One area where this can be seen quite clearly is in regards to evaporative cooling technologies. There are a number of manufacturers who are now offering “new” evaporative cooling solutions to the marketplace. The reality is that most of these so called “new” offerings are only new to the manufacturer. They are not new technologies that have not previously existed. As a result some data center owners have had issues with unqualified manufacturers claiming they can provide an evaporative cooling solution. Any data center owner that is looking to apply evaporative technology on their facility for cooling should be very aware of the fact that evaporative cooling is both an art and science. There is hard scientific data behind the psychrometric chart, dew point levels, dry bulb, and wet bulb temperatures. However, there is an art in moving the science from theory into practice. The art is only learned through years of experience and applications. The walk away for a data center owner is to make sure to engage with a manufacturer who has been around long enough to know how the art and science of evaporative cooling come together in the process of manufactured equipment.
United Metal Products has been providing clients with evaporative cooling solutions for over 35 years. They have been heavily involved in the data center cooling industry and are currently providing cooling solutions for several hundred megawatts of data center space. If you are interested in applying an evaporative cooling solution on your next data center contact the Data Center Design team at United Metal Products via h.simmons@unitedmetal.com