As we know, cooling is a huge issue in a big facility full of temperature-sensitive machines constantly producing a whole lot of heat.  We can’t just tell them to stop, so what to do?  Cooling depletes a lot of resources environmentally and financially - money spent on cooling can actually add up to half of a data center’s annual energy expenditure, and the energy used by data centers is environmentally significant.  There is a lot of room for improvement in current data center cooling trends, and companies like Polargy, Wright Line, and Advanced Data Centers, to name a few, are working hard at increasing energy-efficiency in this area.  Their approaches, although different, are both centered around the idea of aisle containment, which aims to prevent mixing of ho t and cold air.

Polargy has had great success with cold aisle containment.  They use a system of soft-wall curtains and rigid panels to control airflow, greatly increasing energy-efficiency.  In fact, in a recent case study, Polargy’s innovative cold aisle containment design enabled a 1600 square-foot data center with a 335kW IT load to improve its energy-efficiency enough to save $30,000 annually.  Their design is also adaptable for hot aisle containment.  Polargy’s website provides a more in-depth account of their work.

Another exciting instance of successful data center cooling creativity is in the collaboration of Wright Line, Advanced Data Centers, and Rumsey Engineers - in this case in heat aisle containment rather than cold.  The Independent Containment System is sustainable, vendor-neutral, free-standing, and scalable.  All these companies are very serious about being green and it really shows in the success of their product.  Refer to their websites, Wright Line, Advanced Data Centers, or Rumsey Engineers for more information about them and products like the ICS.

-Elizabeth English

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