MEGA RUSSIAN DATA CENTER HFC COOLING GETS INNOVATION AWARD

A Russian mega data center has won an “Innovation in the Mega Data Center” award for the energy efficiency of its HFC  cooling project.

To supply the 25 MW of cooling in a difficult climate, with annual temperature range from minus 35 to plus 40 °C, fifty-eight split chillers were installed, with oil free HFC compressors and remote evaporators, some 120 m far.

The data center, from a very large Russian bank, replaced 36 existing regional data centers by a new centralized center, claimed to be the largest in Europe, covering 5,000 m2 with a cooling power need of 25 MW.

Despite the challenging conditions, the facility has a low Power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.3, while the average is 2.5 and the most efficient 1.6.

The oil free chiller compressors can run with HFC-134a or HFO-1234ze as refrigerants.

Sources : Geoclima - Datacenter Dynamics