Cooling
The Digitalis data center uses a combination of direct and indirect free cooling for cooling. The unique solution in Slovakia contributes to higher reliability and is also more environmentally friendly. Thanks to the use of adiabatic evaporation cooling, hybrid cooling towers and water free cooling, Digitalis saves up to 2/3 of cooling costs, while maintaining ideal operating conditions in data halls. The entire system was designed in cooperation with the company E.D.T.
If the combination of temperature and humidity of the outside air is satisfactory, direct free cooling is used to cool the halls.
If the outside temperature drops below 20°C, incoming air is mixed with air from the hot aisles. Before entering rooms, air is also moistened to the ideal 40 to 60% RH. That eliminates conditions for the creation of static electric charge.
At ambient temperatures above 23°C and if the outside air has suitable humidity, cooling by adiabatic evaporation is used, so that air supplied to the rooms meets the prescribed parameters.
Air cooling and circulation in data rooms is ensured by reliable redundant air conditioning units with an Emerson water heat exchanger.
The necessary cold water is supplied to the air conditioning units in the hall by four independent water circuits. The circuits are in 3+1 redundancy and in the event of a failure of any circuit, the remaining circuits are able to cover 100% of the cooling capacity.
Why do we use adiabatic cooling?
- Adiabatic cooling cools air without using energy-consuming air conditioning.
By passing through moist membranes, air can be cooled by up to 10°C. The drier the air, the more it can be chilled by the adiabatic evaporation of water.
- The only limiting factor is the amount of water we can evaporate into the air so that the recommended air humidity values for the data center are not exceeded. The drier the air, the more we can cool it by adiabatic water evaporation.
Hot and cold aisles:
- Cold air is distributed under the raised floor and hot air dissipates through the ceiling.
- Digitalis uses the concept of hot and cold aisles with the complete separation of hot and cold air.
- We close the hot aisles and not the cold ones, which contributes to even more reliable cooling, since in the case of a short power outage of the air conditioning (e.g. during the start of a diesel generator) there is more cold air than hot air in the room.
- The air from the warm alleys is led to the adjacent building and there it heats the store and the greenhouses of the Kulla garden center.
