Thermal model for data centre cooling

Electrical power devoted to telecommunication industry will grow tremendously with the development of internet services [1] [2]. In a data centre, most of the energy supplied to the IT equipments is converted into heat and diffused in a closed volume. Thus, it is necessary to study solutions to reduce energy consumptions, particularly regarding air conditioning systems [3]. Air conditioning part represents from 30 to 50% of the whole energy consumption, particularly in data centres. For usual buildings, thermal energy losses through the walls are negligible, even in winter. Air conditioning system must be used to transfer heat power from the data centre to the outside. The use of free cooling can be an easy way to reduce the energy consumption. Furthermore, if the building construction is adapted (thermal inertia, thickness of the walls, flow rate…), an optimization is possible by using a night cool storage directly in the masonry. Previous studies related to small buildings have shown good results [4]. This paper describes a numerical study in order to define new conceptions of optimized telecommunication buildings. Walls are used in order to increase heat transfer and reduced cooling energy consumption.