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Simulation of a temperature adaptive control strategy for an IWSE economizer

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Article  in  Applied Energy · December 2014

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2014.07.072

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 Applied Energy 134 (2014) 45–56

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Simulation of a temperature adaptive control strategy for an IWSE

economizer in a data center
Baptiste Durand-Estebe a,b,⇑, Cédric Le Bot a,1, Jean Nicolas Mancos b, Eric Arquis a
a
Univ. Bordeaux, I2M, UMR 5295, F-33400 Talence, France
b
Cap-Ingelec, Allée des Palanques, 33127 St Jean d’Illac, France

h i g h l i g h t s

 The CFD model of a 32 kW data center is presented.

 A Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) method is described.
 A cooling plant model is presented.
 A consumption analysis in function of the air temperature is carried out.
 A new regulation strategy for the cooling plant is proposed.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Nowadays, with the constant evolution of Information Technology (IT) equipments, the energy consump-
Received 17 December 2013 tion of data center over the world becomes a major concern. In 2011 the ASHRAE Technical committee 9.9
Received in revised form 16 July 2014 (TC9.9) issued important guidelines concerning server temperature and hygrometric environment to help
Accepted 20 July 2014
engineer in the design of cooling solutions. While raising the temperature may be a source of heat pump
Available online 23 August 2014
energy savings, it induces an increase in the Computer Room Air Handling (CRAH) unit energy require-
ment, lowering the benefits. Hence optimal temperature cooling set point must be found to maximise
Keywords:
the efficiency of the cooling plant. To test various chiller control strategy a ‘‘full scale’’ model is proposed.
Data center
CFD
A 32 kW data center is considered, cooled by a centrifugal heat pump linked to a wet cooling tower. An
Free cooling Integrated Water Side Economizer (IWSE) is added to minimize the energy consumption the regulation
Regulation and the chilled air production is simulated with the software TRNSYS. The temperature field in the server
POD room is calculated with the CFD code Thetis. To create a link between the 2 simulation environments, a
Cooling plant Reduced Order Model (ROM) using Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) is program with MATLAB.
Finally this numerical model is used to investigate the effect of server room temperature increase on
the cooling plant energy consumption. A new Temperature Adaptive Control Strategy (TACS) that mini-
mizes the energy need is proposed and tested.
Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Data centers are large infrastructures housing hundreds of IT
servers working 24/24, 365 days/year [1]. With the constantly
increasing material performance, their consumptions are quickly
raising. According to prediction, the overall energy absorption
should reach 100 billion kW h around the year 2016 [2]. Therefore,
for environmental and economic considerations, numbers of
⇑ Corresponding author at: Univ. Bordeaux, I2M, UMR 5295, F-33400 Talence,
France. Tel.: +33 (0)5 4000 62 11.
E-mail address: b.durandestebe.09@eigsi.fr (B. Durand-Estebe).
1
Tel.: +33 (0)5 40 00 61 92.
researches are carried out to lower the overall energy needs.
According to Patterson [3] 3 sources of energy consumption can
be identified: the IT part gathering all the servers and computing
units, the Cooling part that includes the machines involved in the
chilled air management, and the power supply system. The present
study is focused on the relations between the servers and the cool-
ing plant, thus the last pole of consumption won’t be taken into
account.
The paper presents the energy optimisation of a 32 kW data
center by numerical simulation. The server room is composed of
32 servers mounted in rack and arranged in cold aisle/hot aisle
Under-floor – Locally Supply/Locally Return U–LS/LR according to
[1]. The cooling plant is composed of a Heat Pump (HP), a cooling

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2014.07.072
0306-2619/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
46 B. Durand-Estebe et al. / Applied Energy 134 (2014) 45–56

Nomenclature

CTKE LES model constant

Model variables a LES model constant
Pit server power dissipation (kW) T filtered temperature (°C)
0
Mit server fan flow rate (m3/h) T temperature standard deviation (°C)
MCO CRAC output flow rate (m3/h) k thermal conductivity (W/mK)
TCO CRAC output air temperature (°C) kt turbulent thermal conductivity (W/mK)
TCI CRAC input air temperature (°C) Cp air heat capacity (J/kg K)
TII server inlet temperature (°C) Prsg sub-grid Prandtl number
TIImax inlet temperature of the hotter server (°C)
Tloop CRAC inlet water temperature (°C) POD snapshot variables
Tchhot CRAC outlet water temperature (°C) Ns number of snapshots
TchHX IWSE heat exchanger outlet water temperature (°C) x number of scalar node in a snapshot
Tchi chiller evaporator inlet water temperature (°C) Tp matrix gathering snapshots
Tcho chiller evaporator outlet temperature (°C) Tm mean matrix
Tcoo chiller condenser outlet temperature (°C) s spatial deviation
Tcoi chiller condenser inlet temperature (°C) R correlation matrix
Tsump cooling tower sump water temperature (°C) k eigenvalues
t eigenvectors
Mechanic equations / eigenmode
u filtered air velocity (m/s) C POD coefficient
q air density (kg/m3) Enrj eigenmode energy
p filtered air pressure (Pa) E max3600 prediction maximum error on scalar nodes (°C)
l dynamic viscosity (Pa s) RMS3600 prediction RMS error on scalar nodes (°C)
k permeability (m2) E max 32 prediction maximum error on server temperature (°C)
lt turbulent dynamic viscosity RMS32 prediction RMS error on server temperature (°C)
CM LES model constant HAOC Hourly Average Operation Cost (kW)
CS,1 LES model constant

tower and a Computer Room Air Handling (CRAH) unit. It also inte- dramatic inflation of CRAH fan energy consumption. Thus for a spe-
grates a Water Side Economizer to enhance its energy efficiency cific cooling plant, the best compromise between air supply tem-
with an appropriate controller. perature and air flow rate has to be found to minimize the
The CRAH units maintain the IT material in very particular air overall energy absorption. This set point depends on many param-
conditions. In 2011, the ASHRAE TC9 representing IT equipment eters including: cooling plant design, material and Air Distribution
manufacturers created several environmental envelops bounded System (ADS) performance.
by temperature and hygrometry [4]. These recommendations aim This optimal trade off between air temperature and flow rate
to give more flexibility to engineers to conceive innovative cooling will also be affected by the integration of an Economizer in the
solutions for data centers while insuring maximum security and cooling plant. Several studies pointed that using an economizer
reliability. The 4 environmental classes are plotted on the psycho- (airside or waterside) and raising the supply air temperature may
metric chart Fig. 1 lead to good results [5,10]. In fact, depending on the climate and
In the study, the modelled data center belongs to the A1 class on the data center air temperature set point, the whole system
with the most restrictive temperature and hygrometry conditions. can achieve free cooling or partial free cooling operation during
While raising the chilled air temperature can be a way to reduce hundreds of hours a year. This ‘‘free’’ cooling energy will constantly
the overall energy consumption by lowering the Heat Pump (HP)
energy needs, this solution has to be handled with care. The ASH-
RAE guideline [4] indicates that most of the recent IT servers are
sensitive to their inlet temperature. A hotter cooling airflow
induces an increase in current leakage at a ship level. In recent
blade server, the Fan Speed Control Algorithm (FSCA) reacts and
raises the server’s fan speed to maintain the material under accept-
able temperature. This behaviour leads to an undesirable increase
in the server energy consumption. Several studies have been car-
ried out to estimate the impact of raising the temperature in a
recent data center, and the effect on the servers [5–8]. Hence low-
ering the HP energy requirement by only increasing the supplied
air temperature is not necessarily an efficient way to save energy.
Moreover in order to maintain the air at the intake of all rack
under a maximum temperature, a specific CRAH air flow rate has
to be found. The ‘‘physic based simple model’’ introduced by
Demetriou [9] shows that in an open aisle data center, hotter tem-
peratures do not always lead to energy savings. As the supply air
temperature rises, the required air flow rate to maintain the IT
equipment under a maximum temperature increases leading to a Fig. 1. ASHRAE environmental classes for data centers.
 B. Durand-Estebe et al. / Applied Energy 134 (2014) 45–56 47

modify the balance between the consumption of the cooling pro- in cold aisle/ hot aisle. The server room is cooled by a cooling plant
duction handled by the HP and of the air distribution achieved composed of a chiller, a 4 cells wet cooling tower, a CRAC unit, a
by the CRAH fans. water/water heat exchanger (IWSE), 2 circulation pumps and 3
The aim of the study is to find through simulation, an adaptive con- mixing valves. A programmed controller and two PID regulators
trol strategies that will constantly optimize the energy performance maintain the different temperature and flow rate set points.
by adjusting the air temperature and the air flow rate set points.
But when it comes to the economizer selection, a choice has to
be made between air-side and water-side systems [10]. In their 2.1. The room layout
study, Bulut and Aktacir [11] studied the free cooling potential of
an air-side economizer used in an office cooling plant, located in The server room is a classic U–LS/LR configuration. The chosen
the city of Istambul. They determine that rising the temperature geometry corresponds to a part of the data center study by [1].
up to 24 °C, allows the cooling plant to work under free-cooling The dimensions are reported Figs. 2 and 3 and Table 1:
condition during 89% of the year. However, the hygrometric and The characteristics of the IT servers are the same as described
temperature requirements for office environment are not as by Cho et al. [1]. A simple model has been chosen compared to
demanding as server room environment. Thus, Dai et al. [12] stud- the one described in [8]. In this paper the power and the fan flow
ied the risk of using an air-side economizer in a datacenter cooling rate are considered constant. The aim is to present an innovative
plant and proposed to reduce it by using a prognostics-based way of modelling a whole data center and to establish links
approach to prevent the failure risks. Finally, according to Myer between a classic the server room environment condition and
and Sorell [10], air-side economizers are generally more efficient the cooling plant regulation. In further study the interaction
then water-side economizers. However the second class of system between high density blade server and cooling plant will be
presents several advantages when it comes to data center rehabil- studied.
itation such as small footprint and low investment cost. Moreover The CRAH flow rate is regulated by a PID controller to ensure a
unlike the air-side economizer [13], no detailed control strategy security condition while minimizing the fan speed. This will be dis-
have been proposed for water-side economizer. Therefore, the cussed in the corresponding chapter. Finally to ensure mass con-
IWSE free cooling system is selected for the study, and its model- servation, the flow rate absorbed by the two ventilation grid
ling is used to improve its regulation strategy. located on the hot aisle at the ceiling are equal and compensate
However the simulation of a server room and its cooling plant the inlet flow rate blown at the centre in the cold aisle.
over a year presents numbers of issues. In order to propose an
overall simulation of a data center, several tools have to be used
and linked together. The outdoor climate, the cooling plant, the 2.2. The cooling plant and its regulation strategy
Integrated Water Side Economizer (IWSE) and the controller will
be simulated on the TRNSYS software. But as the plant controller
The full scheme of the cooling plant with a schema of the server
requires the instantaneous temperature of all the IT equipments,
room is presented on Fig. 4. The dotted line in the server room
a temperature field must be computed inside the room. The CFD
mark out the boundaries of the CFD simulation:
code Thetis developed by the I2 M laboratory handled the velocity
The 1st aim of a data center is to ensure a safe work environ-
and temperature field calculation inside the server room. Unfortu-
ment for the IT equipments. Thus to make sure that every IT server
nately in order to simulate a full year (8760 h), TRNSYS requires a
operates under a given temperature, a PID regulator adjusts the
CFD calculation each 0.5 h corresponding to its simulation time
flow rate MCO. The numerical model computes the servers’ intake
step, while the CFD code requires at least 24 h to complete a calcu-
air temperature and sends the hottest result TIIMAX to the room reg-
lation. In this condition it is not conceivable to run the two pro-
ulator. The controller varies the CRAH fan speed to maintain this
grams in parallel. Thus to estimate server room air condition a
temperature under a given set-point based on the ASHRAE recom-
Reduced Order Model (ROM) using Propper Orthogonal Decompo-
mendations [4]. The chosen TIIMAX set-point for this study corre-
sition (POD) with the snapshot technique [9] is used to quickly
sponds to the maximum allowable temperature 32 °C.
interpolate CFD results obtained from Thetis. This technique is
implemented in TRNSYS using the Matlab software. It provides
an interesting environment to test new control strategy and to
estimate their impact on energy savings over a year.
The first part of this article presents the 32 kW data center that
will be modelled for this study. In a second part the numerical
methods used to create the simulation environment are presented.
Then the effects of rising the supply air temperature on the energy
consumption are investigated. Finally a thermally aware control
strategy adapted to IWSE is proposed.
This work aims to use the cold/hot aisle configuration intro-
duced by Cho [1] in the 32 kW server room, and to link it to the
IWSE model proposed by Mackay [18]. The POD Snapshot tech-
nique presented by Demetriou [9] is used, and a new way of mod-
elling full scale datacenter is proposed. At last, the obtained model
is used to propose an original and innovating type of adaptive reg-
ulation called TACS.

2. The data center layout

The infrastructure simulated in this paper is a small computer

room for a total constant power of 32 kW. The racks are arranged Fig. 2. Top view of server room configuration.
48 B. Durand-Estebe et al. / Applied Energy 134 (2014) 45–56

flow rate is equally shared between the four cells and each cell’s
fan is constantly loaded at 70% of its capacity.
The last control component is the IWSE regulator appearing on
Fig. 4. The aim of this device is to optimize the installation in func-
tion of several temperatures. Its algorithm is derived from the
paper [10] and is presented on Table 2.

2.3. The cooling plant equipments

The Heat Pump is the central component of the cooling installa-

tion. Its rated capacity is 44.6 kW with a rated Coefficient Of Per-
formance (COP) of 4.5. Its other characteristics such as Part load
ratio (PLR) and COP ratio are similar to the ones described in
[14]. The evaporator side is connected to the CRAH unit. The vari-
able speed pump P1 characteristics of this circuit are taken from
the Wilo products [15].
Fig. 3. Side view of server room configuration. The CRAC unit that blows the cool air in the server room is com-
posed of a water/air heat exchanger and a variable speed fan. The
characteristics of the heat exchanger are taken from the Alfa Laval
catalogue [16], the computed heat transfer coefficient is
Table 1
Variables definition.
UA = 31707 kJ/h K. The fan rated flow rate is 8453 kg/h for a rated
power of 5.31 kW, these data are derived from the TRANE cata-
W Room Width 5.0 m logue [17]. It is considered that the flow rate can reach 120% of
H Room Height 3.5 m
RL Rack Length 1.0 m
the rated characteristic for a short period of time.
Rw Rack Width 0.8 m The heat pump evacuates the calories with a cooling tower con-
Rh Rack Height 2.0 m nected on the condenser side. A 0.835 kW single speed pump P2
Haw Hot aisle width 0.5 m [15] drives the water in the circuit. The cooling tower contains 4
Caw Cold aisle width 1.0 m
cells connected to a single 2.4 m3 sump. The temperature of the
AL Aisle Length 3.2 m
d Aisle distance to the wall 0.35 m replacement water entering the sump is 20 °C. Each cell has a
ITh IT server height 0.5 m 1.12 kW variable speed fan with a maximum flow rate of
MIT IT server fan air flow rate 160 m3/h 4000 m3/h.
Pit IT server power release 1 kW Finally a 0.9 constant efficiency water/water plate heat exchan-
ger is added to the cooling plant according to the schemes [10,18].
It allows the energy extracted from the server room to flow from
the evaporator side to the condenser side without the use of the
The second PID regulator adjusts the water flow rate in the heat pump. Two by-pass valves driven by the IWSE controller are
evaporator loop to maintain the temperature TCO at the required added on each side of the heat exchanger. The one on the evapora-
set-point. In this first control strategy TCO is constant over a year. tor side V2 regulates the water temperatures TCHI returning to the
In order to keep reasonable flow rates in the evaporator loop, a chiller. The one on the condenser side V3 by-pass the heat exchan-
DT of 7 °C is observed between the water temperature entering the ger when non free-cooling operations to avoid additional pressure
heat exchanger Tloop and the blown air set point temperature TCO. drop.
The heat pump set-point temperature varies from 9 °C to 10 °C Finally a third loop-by-pass valve V1 also driven by the IWSE
depending on TCO. For Tloop temperatures greater than 10 °C, a tem- controller is added to the evaporator. As the Heat pump maximal
pering valve V1 partially mixes the returning hot water to the evaporator temperature is TCHO = 11 °C, the valve V1 allows loop
chiller outlet cold water to get the right set point. water temperature to increase by by-passing a part of the return-
On the condenser side, the cooling tower is fed by a single speed ing fluid. Doing so, the system can increase the number of hours
pump P2 that provides a constant 7000 kg/h water flow rate. The of free-cooling or partial free-cooling.

Fig. 4. Cooling plant schematic.

 B. Durand-Estebe et al. / Applied Energy 134 (2014) 45–56 49

Table 2
IWSE Economizer mode selection process.

The blackened devices are switched off or unused

Free-cooling (WSE)
TchHX 6 Tloop
 The heat pump is turned off, The heat
load is evacuated through the cooling
tower
 The cooling tower works at 70% of its
maximal capacity
 The by-pass valve on the condenser
side V3 is closed the water fully flows
through the IWSE heat exchanger
 The evaporator by-pass valve V2 is
regulated to maintain Tloop equal to
the desired set-point
 The loop by-pass valve V1 is closed
Partial free-cooling (IWSE)
Tchhot > Tsump AND NOT(WSE)
 The heat pump is turned on
 The cooling tower works at 70% of its maximal
capacity
 The 2 by-pass valves on the evaporator V2 and on
the condenser side V3 are closed. The water of the
2 circuits flow through the heat exchanger.
 The loop by-pass valve V1 is regulated, mixing
chilled water from the Heat Pump and returning
water to maintain Tloop at the desired set-point
Normal
Tsump > Tchhot
 The heat pump is turned on
 The cooling tower works at 70% of its maximal capacity
 The 2 by-pass valves on the evaporator V2 and on the con-
denser side V3 are open. The heat exchanger is short cir-
cuited to reduce the pressure loss in the circuits
 The loop by-pass valve V1 is regulated, mixing chilled
water from the HP and returning water to maintain Tloop
at the desired set-point

3. Flow and heat transfer equations ity, adding the turbulent viscosity lt. Thus the Eq. (2) can be written
under the following form:
Previous study [8,19] regarding the physical phenomena hap-    
@u
pening in a server room has shown the following results: q þ r  u  u ¼ qg  rp þ r  2ðl þ lt ÞS ð3Þ
@t
(a) The flow is fully turbulent in the whole data server room. In this paper both the Smagorinsky and the Turbulent Kinetic
(b) Heat transfers are mainly ruled by mixed convection. Energy (TKE) models are used to model the sub-grid viscosity
[20]. The turbulent viscosity is then written under the following
The filtered Navier–Stokes equations are used to compute the form:
air flow, combined to a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) model to take  a=2 h i1a
into account the turbulent effects. The air flow is considered lt =q ¼ C M D1þa 2Sij Sij ðqsm Þ1=2 ð4Þ
incompressible, the thermal properties are assumed constant (con-
ductivity, heat capacity, viscosity). The filtered momentum equa- qsm is the sub grid turbulent kinetic energy written
tions that are solved for the whole domain are written as follows qsm  1=2ðui Þ0 ðui Þ0 and ðui Þ0 represents the smallest resolved.
[20]: CM being a constant derived from the Smagorinsky and the TKE
models. It’s written under the following form:
ru¼0 ð1Þ
    l C M ¼ ðC s;1 Þ2a ðC TKE Þ1a ð5Þ
@u
q þruu ¼ qg  rp þ r  2lS  sij þ u ð2Þ Cs,1 = 0.173 is a constant from the Smagorinsky model and
@t k
CTKE = 0.2 is a constant from the TKE model. Finally a is set equal
In the Eqs. (1) and (2) u expresses the filtered velocity. On the left to 0.5 in order to ensure a good balance between the two sub-grid
side of the momentum equation @u @t
represents the unsteady acceler- models.
ation and r  u  u the convective acceleration. The right side of Eq. The filtered energy equation is written [21]:
(2) represents the sum of all the forces applied to the fluid. The first !
@T  Y
term is the gravity term and qB = 1.17 kg/m3 is considered constant. qC p þ u  rT ¼ r  krT  ð6Þ
The second right hand-side term rp is the pressure gradient term @t
with p the filtered pressure field. The parameter k is the permeabil- Q
ity, used here to model solid zones. Finally the last term Similarly to Eq. (2), the sub-grid stress tensor can be
r  ð2lS  sij Þ is composed of the viscosity constraint and the sub- expressed as a turbulent conductivity kt and Eq. (6) becomes:
!
grid stress tensor sij. The filtered rate-of-strain tensor S is written @T  
S ¼ 1=2ðru þ rT uÞ. In the LES approach, the energy dissipated by qC p þ u  rT ¼ r  ðk þ kt ÞrT ð7Þ
@t
the small scale is taken into account by increasing the local viscos-
50 B. Durand-Estebe et al. / Applied Energy 134 (2014) 45–56
The turbulent conductivity kt is modeled using a sub-grid Pra-
ndtl number Prsg method [21] with the equation:
lt C p
kt ¼
Prsg
4. Numerical methods
The finite volume CFD code Thetis was used for all the simula-
tions that are presented in this paper. The numerical code is devel-
oped by the I2 M laboratory. It is based on a One Fluid model and
implicit finite volumes method.
The equations are solved on a staggered grid to compute the
coupling between pressure and velocity. The filtered Navier–Stokes
equations are solved on the whole domain, a Brinkman term is
added to distinguish the fluid zone (air) for which a high value of
permeability is given (practically k = 10+20 m2) and the solid zone
(datacenter structure) corresponding to a low value of permeabil-
ity (k = 1020 m2), so that in this zone, the velocity field is naturally
set to u ¼ 0. Thus, air flow cannot penetrate the solid structure and
must bypass it.
The velocity – pressure coupling is ensured by a pressure pre-
diction/correction algorithm, based on the incompressibility con-
straint. Such a method is described by Goda [22]. The space
discretization is carried out by a theta scheme, and an Euler
scheme is used for the time discretization. The resulting linear sys-
tem is solved, using a BICGS solver [23] of the Hypre library, with
Jacobi preconditioning. The projection step is ensured by a HYPRE-
BICG solver and a multigrid preconditioning.
The energy equation is written in temperature. A hybrid scheme
is used for the space discretization. A first order time discretization
is also used. The linear system is solved by a BICG solver and ILU
preconditioning.
The residues are fixed at 108 for the flow equations and 1016
for the energy equation to provide an accurate solution.
These numerical methods have been used and validated for the
simulation of the physical phenomena involved in a data center
server room. The following works by Nicolas et al. [24,25] present
the validation of the CFD code on a benchmark solution for a three-
dimensional mixed convection flow.
5. The server room model
The server room is modelled on the software ECOTECT where
simple geometry and grid mesh can be easily defined. Further
details on the model and the numerical method are reported in
the paper [8].
The square grid size is 60  60  60. The servers are modeled by
an open square enclosure and scalar nodes are placed on each par-
tition. A mesh refinement is used close to the air/structure inter-
face to diminish the wall ‘‘diffusion’’.
Each server dissipates a constant heat power of 1 kW equally
distributed over its volume. At each scalar node inside the open
enclosure, a source term is added to the energy equation to simu-
late the hardware energy dissipation.
The server fans are simulated by converting an air flow of
160 m3/h into an air velocity and applying it at each scalar node
located at the outlet of the server.
The ventilation grids at the floor and at the ceiling are delimited
by scalar nodes. The airflows are part of the boundary conditions
and the air speed is calculated from the mesh definition. This
way it guaranties the mass conservation of the system and the flow
incompressibility assumption.
Concerning the thermal boundary conditions, the 6 walls are
considered adiabatic. The temperature on the floor at the vent tile
location is equal to TCO.
ð8Þ
6. The POD snapshot method
CFD calculations are very time consuming. The resolution of one
simulation of the previously described model takes about 20 h
with 64 processors sharing the domain. Yet the simulation of the
cooling plant behaviour would ask at least one simulation for every
17 520 required time step to complete a calculation over a full
year. Thus coupling the CFD code Thetis with the software TRNSYS
for a full calculation isn’t worth considering. However an access to
a strong calculator (Jade CINES) allows carrying out a reasonable
number of simulations. Then a statistics-based reduced-order
model using Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) with the
Snapshot technique is developed on the software MATLAB and
linked to TRNSYS. Based on an initial set of data (the Snapshots)
this method permits to estimate a temperature field at the intake
of a server in few milliseconds and with a very small error.
The two parameters that would be controlled in the server
room are the intake temperature TCO and the cooling air input flow
rate MCO. The information needed to control the server room are
the input temperature of each IT equipment, and the air tempera-
ture returning to the CRAH unit TCI. to create the snapshots, 16 sim-
ulations are carried out for 4 different fan capacity (50%, 75%, 100%,
125%) and 4 different temperatures (16 °C, 18.67 °C, 21.33 °C,
24 °C). For each simulation, the temperature field at the centre of
the cold aisle corresponding to the server input and the mean tem-
perature of the returning air to the CRAH TCI are extracted as shown
on Fig. 5.
6.1. The construction of the POD model
The reduced order model is constructed according to the
method described by Demetriou [9] and Bui-Thanh et al. [26].
The following equations (from 9 to 14) are derived from their work.
The 16 temperature fields are gathered in a single matrix Tp e MNs,x
with Ns the number of snapshots and x the number of scalar nodes
in the temperature field. The matrix Tm e Mx representing the
mean of the 16 temperature fields is created according to the Eq.
(10):
PNs
i¼1 Tpi;j
Tmj ¼ 8j 2 ½1; x ð9Þ
Ns
s e MNs,x is calculated following Eq. (11) representing the spatial
deviation of a snapshot from the mean field
si;j ¼ Tpi;j  Tmj ; 8i 2 ½1; Ns; 8j 2 ½1; x ð10Þ
The correlation matrix R e MNs,Ns is created according to Eq.
(12):
1 X x
Ri;j ¼ si;k  sk;j 8i; j 2 ½1; Ns ð11Þ
Ns k¼1
The eigenvalues k 2 M Ns and eigenvector t e MNs,Ns of the matrix
R are computed and arranged such as k1 > k2 > ::: > kNs . The
eigenvector are used to compute the eigenmode of the POD
/ e MNs,x following the Eq. (12):
X
x
/i;j ¼ si;k  tk;j 8i 2 ½1; Ns; j 2 ½1; x ð12Þ
k¼1
Finally the POD coefficients C e MNs,Ns are computed from the
eigenmodes and the eigenvectors according to Eq. (13):
 B. Durand-Estebe et al. / Applied Energy 134 (2014) 45–56
Fig. 5. Cold aisle temperature field [K].
Px
si;k  /k;j
C i;j ¼ Pxk¼1 8i; j 2 ½1; Ns
k¼1 /i;k  /k;j
Using the previously computed Matrix each Snapshot can be
reconstructed from the mean matrix Tm, the eigenmodes / and
he POD coefficient C following the Eq. (14):
X
Ns
T i;j ¼ Tmj þ C i;k  /k;j 8i 2 ½1; Ns; 8j 2 ½1; x
k¼1
6.2. Investigation of the model accuracy
As described earlier, eigenvalues and eigenmodes have been
arranged by eigenvalue according to a decreasing order. Hence
the first POD eigenmode / computed with the first eigenvector t
is the most energetic. According to Demetriou [9], the energy
Enrji e MNs of the eigenmodes can be computed following Eq. (15):
ki
Enrji ¼ PNs 8i 2 ½1; Ns
i¼1 ki
The results of this calculation are plotted Fig. 6.
The energy calculation indicates that 99.98% of the energy is
carried by the first 8 eigenmodes. Hence the re-constructed snap-
shot with these 8 eigenmodes should provide enough accuracy.
Further calculations with 16 eigenmodes would take longer to
solve and would not bring lots of additional information. To verify
the accuracy of the reconstruction, four different errors formula are
defined. The maximum error on the 3600 scalar nodes between an
original Snapshot and a reconstruction is E max3600. The Root Mean
Square error on the temperature field prediction defined by Deme-
triou [9], can be written:
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
1 Xx
RMS3600 ¼ ðTsi  Tri Þ 8i 2 ½1; x
x i¼1
where Ts e Mx contains the temperature of the original Snapshot
and Tr e Mx contains the temperature of the reconstructed Snap-
shot. Similarly E max32 is defined representing the maximum error
between the original server temperature and the reconstructed
ones. Finally RMS32 is computed, defining the RMS error in the ser-
ver intake temperature between the original simulation and the
reconstructed Snapshot.
The reconstruction test of a snapshot shows maximum error in
the 3600 scalar nodes temperature field of E max3600 = 0.48 °C is
RMS3600 = 0.09 °C. When calculating the 32 servers input tempera-
51
Fig. 6. Energy content of POD modes.
ture, the reconstructed snapshots shows a E max32 = 0.12 °C and a
RMS32 = 0.05 °C. These results indicate that the POD method is able
to accurately reconstruct the snapshots with only 8 modes.
ð13Þ In this study the POD model is used to reproduce the room tem-
perature field behaviour without the need to carry out large CFD
calculation. Indeed, as the temperature field will be regulated by
a PID controller, the fan speed and the air temperature TCI will vary
linearly during the simulation. When the PID command does not
correspond to one of the 16 snapshots, the program uses the
POD model as an interpolation tools. It recreates 8 eigenmodes
ð14Þ
by performing a half spline half linear interpolation between the
eigenmodes of the closest Snapshots. An interpolated temperature
field is re-constructed following Eq. (6). Hence the program is able
to compute any temperature field for TCI ranging from 16 °C to
24 °C and fan flow rate ranging from 50% to 125% of the nominal
value.
Several test where performed to validate the ability of the POD
model to perform temperature field’s interpolations. When com-
paring the interpolated results to CFD simulation, it revealed a rel-
atively high maximum error of E max3600 = 3.05 °C but a small RMS
error of RMS3600 = 0.64 °C on the full temperature field. Consider-
ð15Þ ing the server intake temperature, the maximum temperature
error was E max32 = 0.85 °C and the RMS error was RMS32 = 0.32 °C.
These errors are not insignificant, however they do not comes from
the POD method as it showed good results when re-constructing
an original snapshots. Moreover the accuracy of the interpolation
method has been demonstrated in [9,27]. The errors probably
come from the lack of snapshots (only 16) and from the great tem-
perature field variations between them. However it appears that
the model slightly overestimates the temperature, hence it should
penalize the energy gain and the obtained results won’t be overes-
timated. Moreover, as the aim of this paper is to introduce a new
way of modelling a full scale data center and to test a new type
of regulation, these errors will not significantly impact the results.
ð16Þ 7. The TRNSYS numerical model
TRNSYS is a very powerful environment made up of two parts.
The kernel that read input files, solves the system, determines con-
vergence and plots system variables. The components library con-
tains the weather data processors, the basic HVAC and the
regulator units (www.trnsys.com). For this simulation, an addi-
tional IWSE controller has been programmed and added to the sys-
tem. It controls the by-passing valves and the HP as described in
Table 2. Furthermore, it switches off the HP when the evaporator
flow rate is null. The references of the main components (Type)
are given Table 3. Few additional details are given in this study
52 B. Durand-Estebe et al. / Applied Energy 134 (2014) 45–56
Table 3
TRNSYS types used in the cooling plant model.
Components names TRNSYS
type
TRNSYS – Matlab link (running the POD model) Type155
TMY2 weather data processor Type15
Centrifugal water cooled chiller (heat pump) Type666
Cooling tower: user-supplied performance coefficients Type51
Pump – inlet flow rate known – power coefficients Type743
Heat exchanger with constant effectiveness (water/water Type91
IWSE)
Cross flow heat exchanger: cross flow (water/air CRAC unit) Type5
Variable speed fan/blower (CRAC unit fan) Type662
IWSE controller Type808
PID controller Type 23
Controlled flow diverter Type11f
Tee piece Type11 h
as the mathematical descriptions of the models are fully available
in the reference book [28,29].
For the water cooled chiller model, the capacity ratio, the COP
ratio and the Part Load ratio (PLR) files are extracted from the ref-
erence [14]. These data shows very little difference with the ones
given by TRNSYS. In the same way the two coefficient required
by the cooling tower model are also the one given in [14]. For
the single and variable speed pump, the same model is used; the
only difference lies in the flow rate set-point (constant or variable).
The pumps energy absorption is modelled by a normalized first
order curve as a function of the flow rate. This curve and the
corresponding coefficients are derived from the data of an
IPL-WILO-VEROLINE. The CRAH unit’s fan energy absorption is cal-
culated the same way but with a simple 3rd order curve. Concern-
ing the PID regulation, the model proposed by TRNSYS is based on
the algorithm given by Aström et al. [27,30]. This model uses a sin-
gle constant KPID for the three terms (Proportional, Integral and
Derivative), plus 2 constants TINTand TDER to weight the influence
of the Integral and the Derivative Terms. As it is very difficult to
obtain a transfer function of the system, several tests have been
performed to define the optimal values of the constants for the
two PIDs. The values were selected to avoid oscillations, and to
get a good compromise between a fast response and a reasonable
overshoot. However, and as reminded by the TRNSYS manual
[28], given the large number of PID algorithm, these optimal set-
tings will probably vary when transferred to a real-life controller.
Finally concerning the weather data, the hourly file comes from
METEONORM for the city of Bordeaux. The city is located in the
south west of France, north hemisphere (44°500 600 North 0°340 4600
west) It is created from meteorological measurement carried out
over the past 30 years, and includes dry bulb air temperature,
hygrometry, solar radiations, etc. Further analysis of the tempera-
ture and hygrometry will be given in the next chapters.
8. Simulation results for various cold loop temperature
This chapter presents the results of 5 simulations of the data
center behaviour over a full ‘‘typical’’ year in the city of Bordeaux,
the weather file comes from the software METEONORM. The cli-
mate is Mediterranean with no extreme temperature either in
summer, or in winter. The weather file indicates that the coldest
temperature happens during the month of January (5.6 °C) which
is also the coldest month of the year with a mean temperature of
5.81 °C. During the summer, the hottest temperature is reached
during the month of August (32 °C). However the hotter month is
July with a mean temperature of 20.36 °C. Finally, over a year,
the mean dry bulb temperature is around 13 °C.
Concerning the hygrometry, the highest humidity ratio is
recorded for the month of December (83%) and the lowest for the
month of July (73%). The average humidity ratio over a year is 78%.
In order to determine the optimum temperature set-point for
the cooling air in the server room, 5 simulations are carried out with
TCO ranging from 16 °C to 24 °C. However, as described in chapter
2.3, a temperature drop of 7 °C is maintained between TCO and Tloop,
thus while raising the air supply temperature, the temperature of
the cooling water in the loop on the evaporator side Tloop will also
increase. The chilled water temperature set point of the heat pump
Tchi is set as high as possible with a maximum of 10 °C to reach the
lowest energy absorption. Thus for TCO = 16 °C, Tchi = 9 °C, and for
temperature greater or equal to 17 °C, Tchi = 10 °C. Concerning Tloop,
temperatures higher than 10 °C are obtained by mixing the chilled
water with a part of the hot water returning from the IWSE heat
exchanger thanks to V1.
In the room, the intake air temperature of the IT equipments is
calculated with the POD model. For each time iteration in the sim-
ulation, the room PID controller determines the hottest server.
Then the regulator adjusts the chilled air flow rate MCO to maintain
this hottest equipment at 32 °C, corresponding to the maximum
allowable temperature according to ASHRAE [4]. This choice of reg-
ulation is quite ‘‘aggressive’’ as it makes the servers run at the
highest allowed temperature, but it enables the best energy sav-
ings by setting the CRAC fan flow rate at the minimum required.
8.1. Analysis of the results for TCO = 16 °C
The simulation is carried out over a year. Fig. 7 plots the utiliza-
tion ratio of the 3 modes WSE, IWSE and normal. Their values are
displayed on the left vertical axis. The curve plots the monthly
mean temperature; the values are displayed on the right vertical
axis.
In winter (from the 12/21 to the 03/21) time, the cooling towers
sump temperature often falls below Tloop = Tchi = 9 °C and the heat
pump can be switched off about 37% of the season to perform free
cooling operation (WSE). During the remaining 63% the system
works on partial free cooling (IWSE) and the heat pump is very
lightly loaded with an average of 10% of rated power required.
The first 15 h of the simulation are performed on forced ‘‘normal’’
operation. It explains the few percentage of normal mode appear-
ing on Fig. 6, but it does not alter the results. The mid-season gath-
ers the spring season (from the 03/22 to the 06/21) and the autumn
(from the 09/21 to the 20/12). During this period, due to tempera-
ture raise, partial free cooling is used 93% of the times whereas
free-cooling only represents 7%. Finally in summer time (from
the 06/22 to the 09/20), the system works on partial-free cooling
95% of the time. During the remaining 5%, the cooling tower sump
Fig. 7. IWSE mode repartition during the year.
 B. Durand-Estebe et al. / Applied Energy 134 (2014) 45–56 53

Fig. 8. Energy consumption repartition over a year for TCO = 16 °C.

temperature is greater than the temperature of the water exiting
the CRAC. The Economizer is no longer useful and the IWSE heat
exchanger is by-passed.
The components energy absorption over a year is plotted Fig. 8.
As expected, the overall energy consumption strongly varies
with the seasons. At the beginning of the simulation, the room
PID regulator determines the right flow rate MCO to maintain the
server at the designed temperature. Hence the CRAC fan speed
does not vary and its power consumption stands still along the
year. The second PID regulator on the evaporator side behaves
the same way and sets the evaporator pump speed P1 to maintain
TCO = 16 °C. Concerning the cooling towers, the IWSE controller sets
their cells fans flow rate at 70% of their rated capacity. Finally the
pump on the condenser side P2 is a single speed. Hence the only
equipment that does not have a fixed energy requirement is the
Heat Pump. It varies according to the seasons and depending on
the waterside economizer use. During the winter the load on the
heat pump is very low, the average temperature of water returning
to the CRAC is 15 °C leading to a very low temperature drop
between evaporator input and output (6 °C). These conditions lead
to a lower mean COP of 5.09, but the light load on the heat pump
makes it the less expensive season of the year. During spring the
heat pump load rises, as the cooling tower is less efficient. The
mean load is 26% for an average COP of 5.09. The behaviour during
the season of autumn is very similar. During summer the tower is
less efficient and the IWSE system has to be switched off for several
hours to perform Normal operation. The average load on the heat
pump is 44% and the COP slightly rises up to 5.94.
The following paragraph presents several simulation results
with higher TCO temperatures. The aim is to allow the economizer
to increase the number of hours spent on WSE and IWSE opera-
tions. However while the heat pump consumption is supposed to
decrease, the CRAC fan consumption is expected to rise to maintain
the hottest server at the given set-point. It will generate an
increase in energy consumption that will lower the benefits of
more WSE and IWSE hours.
Fig. 9. Energy and IWSE mode evolution for various TCO.
replaced by WSE operations and the heat pump can be switched
off during more hours. It can be noticed that this evolution is
nearly a linear function of TCO. However the power consumption
does not behave the same way. Great energy saving can be
achieved between 16 °C and 22 °C but the gain between 22 °C
and 24 °C is very small (0.8%). This phenomenon can be explained
with Fig. 10.
The energy consumption of the cooling tower stands still as the
control maintains the command at 70% of its rated capacity over
the year. Concerning the water pumps, their energy absorption
increase can be neglected as they represent a very little part of
the overall energy needs. However, great energy savings are
achieved through the heat pump. Thanks to the increase of the
number of hours when the system perform free and partial free
cooling operations, the annual average load decrease from 27% to
15%. The energy gain on the heat pump is quiet important and
its consumption is reduced by 78%. But these savings are counter-
balanced by a CRAH fan power increase. In fact, in order to main-
tain the hotter server at the maximum allowed temperature, the
server room PID regulator increases the flowrate MCO by 14%. But
the relationship between the fan flow rate and the energy needs
is non linear [5] and the consumption increases by 43%. Thus the
advantage of raising the blowing air temperature is limited and it
is likely that a simulation with TCO = 26 °C would have given an
energy consumption greater than the simulation with TCO = 24 °C.

8.2. Analysis of the energy consumption variations for various TCO

Five simulations have been carried out for TCO = 16 °C, 18 °C,
20 °C, 22 °C, 24 °C. Rising the cooled air temperature, allows the
system to increase the Tloop temperature. It will get more advantage
from the Economizer as the limit condition to switch from the WSE
to the IWSE mode TchHX 6 Tloop will be harder to reach. Similarly the
use of the normal mode will be reduced as the CRAC outlet water
temperature Tchhot will increase. The results of the simulated
energy consumptions are presented Fig. 9.
As expected, the overall energy consumption goes down as the
percentage of WSE hours goes up. The IWSE operations are Fig. 10. Energy consumption repartition for various TCO.
54 B. Durand-Estebe et al. / Applied Energy 134 (2014) 45–56

Table 4
Cooling plant energy absorption per hour [kW] displayed by month for various Tco.

However such simulation was impossible to carry out as the CRAH
fan reached its limit speed.
This series of simulation highlights two main results. First, the
optimum blowing temperature for this system with this specific
material and a regulation over the server maximum allowed tem-
perature is TCO = 24 °C. Raising the temperature set-point from
16 °C to 24 °C induces a gain of 10% on the overall energy con-
sumption. But any modification in the chilled air production or
on the control strategy will probably move this optimal set-point.
Second, the CRAC fan energy consumption tends to minimize the
energy gain when raising the cooling air temperature. In fact, the
WSE Hourly Average Operation Cost (HAOC) that defines the mean
energy absorption of the cooling plant for one hour under free-
cooling operation strongly increase with the raise of TCO. When
TCO = 16 °C. HAOCWSE = 3.55 kW and for TCO = 24 °C.,
HAOCWSE = 4.77 kW. This raise is mostly due to CRAC fan energy
consumption as its airflow increases to maintain the servers under
allowable temperatures. However, concerning IWSE operations, it
appears that HAOCIWSE nearly stands still no matter the blowing
temperature TCO. In fact as the heat pump energy goes down with
a reduction of the load when increasing TCO, it is compensate by a
fan power increase, giving HAOCIWSE = 6.2 kW for every simulation.
Table 4 presents the monthly energy consumption of the cooling
plant for the 5 simulations. For each month different shade of grey
are used to emphasize the difference in energy needs.
As it can be seen on Table 4, the system is more economic in
winter time with TCO = 20 °C. This temperature is the best compro-
mised between the number of WSE operations and the HAOCWSE.
During mid-season and summer time, the optimum TCO quickly
rise to 24 °C as it is better to perform WSE iteration with a high
HAOCWSE than IWSE operation.
From these results it seems interesting to regulate the temper-
ature TCO over the year in function of the ambient climate.
9. The Temperature Adaptive Control Strategy (TACS)
In this chapter, a new Temperature Adaptive Control Strategy
(TACS) is proposed. The aim of this regulation, is to vary the blown

Table 5
TACS mode selection process.

TACS System modes

TACS free-cooling (WSE)
TchHX 6 Tloopmax
 The heat pump is turned off, The heat load
is evacuated through the cooling tower
 The cooling tower works at 70% of its
maximal capacity
 The by-pass valve on the condenser side
V3 is closed, the water fully flows through
the IWSE heat exchanger
 While TchHX P Tloopmin, the by-pass valve
V2 is open, and the whole water flowrate
goes through the IWSE heat exchanger
 If TchHX < Tloopmin then the valve V2 is regu-
lated to maintain Tloop equal to Tloopmin.
 The blown air temperature set-point is set
such as Tco = Tloop + 7 °C
 The loop by-pass valve V1 is closed
Partial free-cooling (IWSE)
Tchhot > Tsump AND NOT (WSE)
 The heat pump is turned on
 The cooling tower works at 70% of its maximal
capacity
 The 2 by-pass valves on the evaporator V2 and on
the condenser side V3 are closed. The water of the
2 circuits flow through the heat exchanger.
 The loop by-pass valve V1 is regulated, mixing
chilled water from the Heat Pump and returning
water to maintain Tloop at Tloopmax
 The blown air temperature set-point is set such as
Tco = Tloop + 7 °C
Normal
Tsump > Tchhot
 The heat pump is turned on
 The cooling tower works at 70% of its maximal capacity
 The 2 by-pass valves on the evaporator V2 and on the
condenser side V3 are open. The heat exchanger is short
circuited to reduce the pressure loss in the circuits
 The loop by-pass valve V1 is open, the water fully flows
through the HP and the temperature Tloop is set to Tloopmin.
 The blown air temperature set-point is set such as
Tco = Tloop + 7 °C
 B. Durand-Estebe et al. / Applied Energy 134 (2014) 45–56
Fig. 11. Weather analysis and TCO evolution with TACS regulation.
Fig. 12. Yearly energy consumption comparison for various TCO set-point and TACS regulation.
air temperature TCO during the year, to perform as much WSE oper-
ations as possible, while getting the lowest HAOCWSE. To calibrate
the system, the boundaries of the blown air temperature (TCO)
are set. They correspond to the limits of the previous temperature
range with TCOmin = 16 °C and TCOmax = 24 °C. Thus, as a tempera-
ture drop of 7 °C is maintained between TCO and the loop-circuit
water temperature Tloop, the boundaries of Tloop are Tloopmin = 9 °C
and Tloopmax = 17 °C. Given these four constants, the system
behaves according to the algorithm presented in Table 5.
As it can be seen on Table 5, The TACS system is very similar to
the previously described IWSE control strategy. The main differ-
ence lies in the behaviour of the system during total free-cooling
operations (WSE). When using the TACS regulation, the value of
the blown air temperature TCO is set in function of the water tem-
perature exiting the IWSE heat exchanger on the evaporator side.
Thus during the winter, or in cold periods, TCO is low and the
HAOCWSE is at its minimum. When the outdoor temperature rises,
the cooling tower sump temperature increases as well, leading to
a rise in TchHX. In this condition, TCO rises until it reaches the limit
TCOmax. After this point, if the temperature TchHX continues to rise,
the system switch to IWSE mode (Table 5 column 2), and the heat
pump maintain Tloop at Tloopmax and TCO at TCOmax. Finally extremely
hot temperatures might happen during the summer, and the cool-
ing tower sump temperature might exceed the water temperature
exiting the CRAH unit Tchhot. In this case the system switches to
Normal mode with Tloop = Tloomib and TCO = TCOmin in order to mini-
mise the CRAH fan energy consumption. Fig. 11 plots several infor-
mation regarding an average day and for each month of the year.
The line with cross markers plots the external temperature and
the surface around the line is bounded by the maximum and the
minimum temperature reached during the month. The upper hor-
izontal dashed line plots TCOmax and the lower one TCOmin. The con-
tinuous line plots the TCO set points that are sent to the CRAC. As
55
previously said, the cooling tower efficiency varies following the
weather conditions. In winter time it is able to maintain low tem-
peratures in the sump that evolve similarly to the external temper-
ature. This tank of cool water allows the system to perform WSE
operations at low temperature and the average TCO set-point
remains below 20 °C. When external temperatures goes up, the
TCO consign follows the trend to perform WSE operations as much
as possible and with the lowest possible temperature. In summer
time the TCO set point is bounded by TCOmax = 24 °C as the CRAC
fan cannot ensure server safety past that temperature.
Fig. 12 compares the energy consumption of the previously pre-
sented simulation with the energy needs required by the system
working with the TACS.
During the months of January, February, March, November,
December, the installation working with the TACS system perform
nearly 100% free cooling operation, like the simulation with
TCO = 24 °C. However the energy consumption during this period
is much lower with the TACS system. This is due to the HAOCWSE
that is equal to 4.77 kW for a fixed TCO = 24 °C whereas mean
HAOCWSE = 3.95 kW for the installation regulated by the TACS with
a mean TCO = 18.17 °C. The energy gain for these months with a sys-
tem regulated by TACS compared to a single TCO = 24 °C set-point is
around 18%. When the temperature is rising, the energy gain
decreases and is nearly null during the summer. Indeed, as previ-
ously explained, the system sets the TCO set point as high as possi-
ble (24 °C) to maximize the number of hour of IWSE operations.
From these results, it can be noticed that the TACS regulation
allowed energy savings during the cold season, but is not efficient
during the summer. Once again this is due to the behaviour of the
cooling tower. During the hot season, it is not able to remove
enough energy from the system. Moreover, the TCO set point is
already at its maximum. Thus the system can only perform IWSE
operations at the highest allowed temperature. However the
56 B. Durand-Estebe et al. / Applied Energy 134 (2014) 45–56
energy gain over a year compared to a constant TCO = 24 °C set
point is around 7%. Compared to the base case TCO = 16 °C the gain
is 17%.
10. Conclusions
This paper investigates a method to lower the cooling plant
energy consumption by modifying its regulation while keeping
all the IT equipments in the ASHRAE allowable environment.
A virtual 32 kW datacenter has been considered to perform the
tests. The infrastructure is cooled by the Integrated WaterSide
Economizer proposed by Myer and Sorell [10].
The air flow and the heat are predicted using the CFD code Thé-
tis, while the cooling plant is modelled using TRNSYS. A POD
reduced order model using Snapshot technique is created with
the software MATLAB. It is used in the TRNSYS simulation to per-
form interpolations between computed CFD results.
Two main effects have been identified. First the increase in
blown air temperature allows the system to raise the evaporator
loop temperature. As a results, the number of WSE or IWSE opera-
tions increase and reduce the load on the heat pump. Doing so, the
HP reduces its energy needs by 78% when the blow air temperature
TCO rises from 16 °C to 24 °C. On the other hand, an increase in the
CRAC fan flow rate, required to maintain all the servers under the
maximum allowable temperature 32 °C is observed and raised the
fan energy consumption by 43%. Thus the simulations determined
that the optimum cooled air temperature for this system is 24 °C.
In this configuration, the cooling plant reduces its energy con-
sumption by 10%, compared to case where TCO = 16 °C.
However, the indicator HAOC shows that operating in WSE
mode at TCO = 16 °C required 26% less energy than at TCO = 24 °C.
The simulation with the proposed TACS regulation showed an
energy gain of 18% in winter time period compared to a fixed
TCO = 24 °C set-point. Over the year the cooling plant regulated by
the TACS system provides an energy gain of 7% compared to fixed
TCO = 24 °C and 17% compared to fixed TCO = 16 °C.
Finally, integration of TACS system does not require any addi-
tional component in the cooling plant. There is only a need to mod-
ify the main regulation which involves a very low maintenance
cost. In returns it can provide up to 17% of electric energy savings
on the cooling plant requirement. Hence, it strongly reduces the
datacenter annual cost, making this system economically
competitive.
In the future, further simulations will be carried out with blade
server introduced in [8]. It will probably require different control
strategy and optimal TCO set-points. Furthermore the effect of Air
Distribution System modification on the cooling plant consump-
tion will be investigated. New POD reduced order model will be
created with cold aisle containment and the effect on cooling plant
energy consumption will be calculated.
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