Techno-Economic and Sustainability Analysis of Potential Cooling Methods in Irish Data Centres

Abstract

11% of Irish electricity was consumed by data centres in 2020. The Irish data centre industry and the cooling methods utilised require reformative actions in the coming years to meet EU Energy policies. The resell of heat, alternative cooling methods or carbon reduction methods are all possibilities to conform to these policies. This study aims to determine the viability of the resell of waste heat from data centres both technically and economically. This was determined using a novel application of thermodynamics to determine waste heat recovery potential in Irish data centres, and the current methods of heat generation for economical comparison. This paper also explores policy surrounding waste heat recovery within the industry. The Recoverable Carnot Equivalent Power (RCEP) is theoretically calculated for the three potential cooling methods for Irish data centres. These are air, hybrid, and immersion cooling techniques. This is the maximum useable heat that can be recovered from a data centre rack. This study is established under current operating conditions which are optimised for cooling performance, that air cooling has the highest potential RCEP of 0.39 kW/rack. This is approximately 8% of the input electrical power that can be captured as useable heat. Indicating that Irish data centres have the energy potential to be heat providers in the Irish economy. This study highlighted the technical and economic aspects of prevalent cooling techniques and determined air cooling heat recovery cost can be reduced to 0.01 €/kWh th using offsetting. This is financially competitive with current heating solutions in Ireland.

Assessment of the Potential to use the Expelled Heat Energy from a Typical Data Centre in Ireland for Alternative Farming Methods

“…Although the research topic is popular, 383,308 papers were published in 2021, and 324,639 papers were published between January and August of 2022 relating to data centres [126]. Many of these papers are forced to make assumptions surrounding the energy use of data centres due to the secrecy of data centre's energy usage or lack of reporting [14,109,112], causing the values produced in many of the papers surrounding data centres to have unknown margins of error. The ever-expanding data centre market and the lack of transparency surrounding the energy usage have hindered research and innovation in the area [127].…”

“…Less than half of Irish data centres have readily available information; since writing this paper, some of the information is no longer freely available on the website [73], further decreasing the accessibility to data. As a result other recent research into the energy use of Irish data centres [110], cooling techniques applied in Irish data centres [111], and the sustainability of cooling methods in Irish data centres [112], had to make many assumptions regarding the energy uses, operating temperatures and applied technologies of Irish data centres. The data centre market is ever-growing and changing with a further three data centres approved for construction in Ireland (August 2022), one in Ennis [113], and two in Dublin [114].…”

Assessment of the Potential to Use the Expelled Heat Energy from a Typical Data Centre in Ireland for Alternative Farming Methods

“…The research topic is popular: 383,308 papers were published in 2021, and 324,639 papers were published between January and August of 2022 relating to data centres [126]. Many of these papers are forced to make assumptions surrounding the energy use of data centres due to the secrecy regarding their energy usage or lack of reporting [14,109,112], causing the values produced in many of the papers surrounding data centres to have unknown margins of error. The ever-expanding data centre market and the lack of transparency surrounding the energy usage have hindered research and innovation in the area [127].…”

“…Less than half of Irish data centres have readily available information; since writing this paper, some of the information is no longer freely available [73], further decreasing the accessibility to data. As a result, other recent research into the energy use of Irish data centres [110], cooling techniques applied in Irish data centres [111], and the sustainability of cooling methods in Irish data centres [112] had to make many assumptions regarding the energy uses, operating temperatures and applied technologies of Irish data centres. The data centre market is ever-growing and changing, with a further three data centres approved for construction in Ireland (August 2022), one in Ennis [113], and two in Dublin [114].…”

Heat Recovery from Cryptocurrency Mining by Liquid Cooling Technology

“…Regarding the approaches of capture and transferring heat from miners, current technologies can be categorized into three types, i.e. air cooling, liquid immersion cooling (single phase and two phases), and hybrid (air/liquid) cooling [2]. Air cooling utilizes fans to pass air over the miner heat sinks.…”