BENCHMARKING FINDINGS/CASE STUDIES

A 1,400 sf data center located in a large office building converted to a system with full
economization capability when its dedicated 25-ton air cooled chiller required replacement.
Due to load growth and reliability problems, portable air conditioners were also being used to
maintain control in the data center space. The existing system used chilled water fed CRAC
units located in the data center. During normal operating hours, a large house chilled water
plant system served the space, while the dedicated chiller was used for off hour (night and
weekend) cooling and backup.
An air-cooled package unit was chosen to replace both the air-cooled chiller and the associated
chilled-water CRAC units. The package unit, shown in the picture to the right, included full
airside economization capability. With this unit, exhaust air is ejected from one end of the air
handler, while outside air is drawn in from the opposite end of the unit through louvers in the
screenwall. This system had multiple benefits for the data center: it replaced the failing chiller,
allowed for airside economization, and eliminated all chilled water piping from within the
data center envelope. The main house air handler system, based on a large water cooled chiller
plant, is used during the day and can be started and used at anytime to provide emergency
backup.
FIGURE 2
DATA CENTER CONVERTED
TO USE AN AIRSIDE ECONOMIZER

This system also freed up floorspace in the data center by removing the CRAC units. The
removal of the CRAC units effectively enlarged the space available for computing equipment,
reducing the need for costly future expansions of the space. The data center can still be served
from the central plant, but now through cooled air from the house air handler rather than
chilled water from the house loop. The data center uses a hot aisle/cold aisle configuration
to increase the return air temperature, which both extends economizer operation into
correspondingly higher outdoor air temperatures and increases the amount of heat that is
exhausted during economizer operation (see Figure 3).

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