06 July 2022
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The Corscale chiller at Airedale by Modine's Rockbridge facility
Following the start of full-scale production at its new US chiller plant in Rockbridge, Virginia, critical cooling specialist Airedale by Modine has confirmed a significant order with data centre giant Corscale.
With Airedale by Modine solutions set to be installed at Corscale’s Gainesville Crossing Data Campus, the company has secured a healthy pipeline for its OptiChill free-cooling chillers, AireWall fan walls and SmartCool ONE computer room air handling units.
Having worked closely with engineers from Corscale, Airedale by Modine has developed a specialised data centre chiller based on their existing OptiChill range. The Corscale chiller, with enhanced free cooling, has been designed to meet North American safety standards, using American materials and components, to offer a world-class energy efficient solution. Engineering specialists at the chiller plant in Virginia have worked with their colleagues at Airedale by Modine’s centre of excellence in Leeds, UK, to deliver a solution that delivers on performance whilst operating at higher water temperatures and fluid temperature differentials than traditional offerings, enhancing energy efficiency and free-cooling potential.
Prior to the commencement of site deliveries, the team from Corscale will be invited to a witness test at Airedale by Modine’s new laboratories in Rockbridge, where the units will be put through their paces under various conditions and tested at different heat loads, simulating the environment and conditions they will be operational under. The test centre is capable of testing a complete range of air conditioning equipment up to 2.2MW (expanding to 5MW in future for water-cooled chillers), the climate temperature being fully controllable anywhere from 15°C / 59°F to 52°C / 126°F.
Corscale’s Gainesville Crossing Data Campus
Chiller
The new Corscale chiller operates using twin screw compressors and has a number of special features, included to enhance efficiency and performance, including:
- High capacity twin screw compressors offer reliability and flexibility, with staged capacity control
- High water temperatures to suit modern data centre designs that prioritise sustainability
- Enhanced controls including fast start, input power limiting and intelligent management of compressors, refrigerant and pumps
- An on-board variable speed pump to precisely match cooling demand, reducing waste energy expenditure while maintaining water-side temperature differential and saving on space and electrical distribution requirements
- Optimised economizers to provide unmatched free cooling potential
- 100% contained Glycol loop to isolate the economiser from the cooling loop and increase efficiency of the AireWall units
- Enhanced controls platform including redundancy back-up and fast-start mode, to minimise the risk of disruption in the event of mechanical breakdown
- On-board active harmonic filtration, ensuring a clean power supply to the data centre, while saving on external plant requirements.
AireWall
AireWall is a low energy cooling solution for mission-critical environments. This range of computer room air handlers, which doesn’t require a raised floor, has been specially designed for low velocity air cooling and suits high-density data centre applications with hot-aisle containment. The units are available in a 4, 6 or 8 fan configuration and have been engineered to the highest design and build standards you would expect from an Airedale by Modine precision unit, with the simplicity and effectiveness of a fan wall. AireWall comprises a filter, fan bank and an optimised high surface area chilled water coil. It includes integrated intelligent controls that enable dynamic cooling output variation based on changing IT loads and operates at low SFP to help achieve low installation PUE. AireWall has been designed to operate in tandem with Airedale by Modine’s range of free cooling chillers, delivering a high efficiency cooling solution.
SmartCool ONE
SmartCool ONE is a 35kW to 1MW computer room air handler. An evolution of the multi award-winning SmartCool™ precision cooling range, it has been developed to meet the increasing demand for ultra-efficient, large capacity precision cooling systems in colocation and hyperscale data centres across the globe. With a cooling capacity of up to 1MW, optimised air and water conditions and an intelligent controls platform to maximise efficiencies and cooling power SmartCool ONE is the intelligent solution for large scale data centre cooling.
Jonas Caino, Vice President at Airedale by Modine said: “We are delighted to announce our order with Corscale, as we start full-scale production at our first-class facilities in Virginia, the largest data centre market in the world. Having invested heavily in our US production facilities, ensuring they deliver the same high quality service and product that our clients have grown to expect and respect from our European production sites, it has been really interesting and enjoyable to work with our American-based colleagues on such a fantastic project and client as Corscale. This order is just the start for our Rockbridge facility, and I am excited to see what the next few years holds.”
Nic Bustamante, senior vice president, development, at Corscale, said, “We selected to work with Airedale by Modine because we wanted something that mirrors our dedication to deliver sustainability at scale. We wanted to work with an established brand that our customers can trust. Airedale products are renowned for their innovative approach and commitment to efficiency, which in turn reduces wastage, and we were impressed by the work they have done across the world with other data centres.”
