When facing data center cooling capacity limitations, many organizations immediately consider building new facilities – an expensive proposition at approximately $2,000 per ton for typical chiller plant installation. However, before making this substantial investment, it’s worth examining an often overlooked resource: your chilled water plant (CHW).
In a Tech Target article, “Improving Data Center Cooling Capacity with Chilled Water Plants,” tekWorx President Mike Flaherty was tapped to share his expertise on this crucial data center cooling challenge. In the article, Flaherty explains how cooling capacity frequently becomes the limiting factor that drives new data center construction. Ironically, this happens despite the fact that most chiller plants are significantly underutilized.
The article explains that the key issue lies in the DELTA T (ΔT): Δ T, in particular low Δ T, is the key parameter for evaluating chiller plant capacity and energy performance. When this temperature differential is lower than designed, the cooling system cannot achieve its rated capacity, forcing premature activation of additional chillers and ultimately leading to perceived data center cooling capacity limitations.
There are many sad stories of owners who have thought they were out of cooling capacity and spent money on new facilities when they could have simply fixed the low ΔT to unlock the capacity they paid for when the plant was built. This common scenario represents a significant opportunity for data center cooling optimization rather than expansion.
The article outlines three critical steps to recover lost cooling capacity and improve efficiency:
- Replace leaking or faulty coil control valves – Using high-quality industrial valves with proper specifications can actually improve ΔT beyond design parameters
- Eliminate decoupler flow – Converting to a contemporary variable primary configuration can immediately improve system efficiency
- Implement adaptive control strategies – Real-time optimization algorithms can continuously optimize the entire cooling system
By addressing these issues through data center chilled water plant optimization, data centers can both increase available cooling tonnage and decrease kW per ton – a win-win for both capacity and operating costs.
