Improved Energy Conservation for Data Centers

ABSTRACT: This phase I proposal will support exploratory research and development to lower the cost of our fluid submersion cooling technology for data centers by 20%. The research will focus on increased efficiency of coolant flow and expanded server capacity for our system. The end goal of Phase I is to design and build a cooling system with the researched improvements, and conduct field trials at a third party facility to verify both the cost and energy savings. BENEFIT: Data centers use nearly 3% of US electricity, up from 1% in 2000. Nearly half of that is driven by cooling - which includes both exterior cooling as well as internal server fans. Green Revolution Cooling (GRC) can lower complete cooling costs by 95% by moving to a much more efficient cooling solution, fluid submersion cooling. Also, because the remaining server power is turned into heated fluid at up to 125 degrees F, Green Revolution Cooling can reuse the remaining power in the form of hot water to heat a building or water supply, for a near net-zero data center energy usage. This makes it the only proven technology that can eliminate nearly all of the power in a data center, regardless of hardware or workload run. GRC's technology is being adopted in the high performance cooling segment due its superior cooling performance for high density applications, and this proposal will drive costs down to also appeal to the cost-conscious low and mid density data centers, which make up the bulk of US data centers. Once this technology is widely adopted, data centers will drastically reduce their energy consumption and be seen as models of efficiency.