EcoDataCenter readies world’s first deployment of chassis-level immersion liquid cooling

Schneider Electric, Iceotope and Avnet’s new cooling solution to be installed at Falun facility, 200km northwest of Stockholm 

EcoDataCenter has announced it will be the first company to offer Schneider Electric, Iceotope and Avnet’s groundbreaking liquid cooling technology for customer’s hosted IT workloads.

The company will install the technology at its recently launched 8MW colocation facility in Falun, Sweden, which the company claims is the world’s first “climate positive” data centre.

The solution, announced by Iceotope, Schneider Electric and Avnet in December last year, will initially cool power densities of 46kW per rack, although it is capable of scaling to power densities of over 100kW per rack.

The companies’ integrated rack with chassis-level immersive cooling solution combines a high-powered GPU server with Iceotope’s liquid cooling technology. Avnet’s role is to integrate the liquid-cooled servers inside Schneider Electric’s new NetShelter liquid-cooled integrated rack enclosures.

It is estimated that chassis-level immersion cooling can reduce rack cooling energy by up to 90 percent and data centre energy usage by up to 14 percent.

The technology is also tipped to provide greater efficiency and lower operating costs at a smaller footprint, given that it removes the need for hot aisle/cold aisle layouts.

Another interesting feature of the cooling arrangement is that it enables high-grade heat to be captured for reuse in local renewable energy schemes, a key pillar of EcoDataCenter’s green strategy.

Lars Schedin, CEO of EcoDataCenter, said itself, Schneider, Avnet and Iceotope were empowering “a more sustainable future”.

“EcoDataCenter has embraced this innovative new technology as an early-adopter, knowing that companies in the market will soon see the operational and environmental benefits, and follow our lead,” he said.

“Schneider Electric is committed to reducing the energy consumption and environmental impact of today’s data centers,” said Rob Bunger, Liquid Cooling Program Director, CTO Office, Schneider Electric.

“The deployment at EcoDataCenter presents a significant milestone for our industry and demonstrates a clear business case for greater innovation and sustainability in IT deployments.”

Announced in 2015, EcoDataCenter’s facility in Falun uses only renewable energy, emits very little carbon dioxide and boasts energy efficiency of 1.15 PUE.