Abstract

As the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) and others aim for buildings to achieve net-zero energy use by the year 2030, including energy-intensive mission critical facilities, designers will need to consider alternate cooling systems that can be reliable and more efficient. The tools and design techniques to achieve this goal are targeted to be in place by 2020; this is less than 5 years.With the expansion of cloud computing and increasing demands for online services, data centers will be growing throughout the world. As the need for energy to support these data centers rises, the need to find and use efficient cooling sources will also increase. Using electricity from power plants to generate cooling is less efficient than using more localized cooling sources. To reach the energy saving goals, designers will need to broaden their choices to find the most beneficial options available.Options for geothermal and utilizing water directly from rivers, lakes, and oceans has become a viable option for end users to save energy, avoid ozone depleting refrigerants, and save space. Geothermal systems will be presented to see the possible benefits and costs that might be associated with installation and maintenance. Lake and river water will be reviewed for the history of industrial cooling and applicability for data centers. To meet the high reliability standards for data centers, the potential advantages, disadvantages, and lessons learned from the unexpected will be reviewed. Lastly, effects to the surrounding environment will be discussed based on existing projects from around the world.The first system in the U.S. at Ithaca, NY, which serves about 51 megawatts of cooling starting in 2000, will be presented for lake water use. A data center in Hamina, Finland, will be reviewed for using seawater. The potential efficiencies, comparisons of savings of equipment and other advantages and disadvantages are also illustrated. For data centers and other critical facilities, the additional requirement to meet higher reliability standards will also be reviewed.

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