Austin, Texas, United States, 15 August 2018: Single Phase Immersion Cooling is the way forward as the cooling approach for data centres, according to GRC, formerly known as Green Revolution Cooling. The company has been pursuing the concept since 2009.

Cooling of data centres has evolved over the past decade and the company’s patented technology has been incorporated in a number of telecom and government data centres across the globe, GRC said.

Peter Poulin, CEO, GRC, while sharing his thoughts on the need for the new kind of cooling system, said: “Over the years, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), cryptocurrency mining and blockchain applications have pushed the boundaries of traditional cooling. They require higher computing power. As a result, rack densities go beyond 50kW/rack. Air cooling maxes out at 15kW/rack, which is why organisations are turning to liquid cooling to accelerate application adoption by addressing thermal, space and capital constraints.”

Elaborating on the function of Single Phase Immersion Cooling, Poulin said: “The premise behind this technology is simple. Instead of cooling servers with high air velocity, they are cooled by immersing all heat-generating server components in a dielectric fluid, called ElectroSafe. Rack-based OEM servers are immersed in horizontally and, then, filled with ElectroSafe, which is odourless, non-toxic and electrically and chemically inert.”

According to GRC, in addition to providing complete hardware reliability, immersing servers in ElectroSafe protects them from hotspots, dust, moisture, vibration and oxygen, thereby improving performance and reliability of the hardware. Poulin said: “Hardware reliability is just one plus point to our DLC. The system also does away with specialised building designs and traditional data centre fixtures, like chillers, computer air conditioning units (CRACs), computer air handler unit (CRAHs), raised floors, hot aisle, cold aisle and humidity controls.” Highlighting the peculiar protective nature of the system, Poulin spoke of how ElectroSafe is ideal for core as well as edge applications. The architecture of the system, he said, results in fewer points of failure and, hence, higher reliability. “A typical GRC data centre,” he said, “has only three moving parts – a coolant pump, water pump and a fan in the cooling tower or dry-cooler. All GRC products also come integrated with numerous sensors, control systems and a Foresight monitoring software.” The software, he said, provides real-time and historical performance data, while conducting regular system diagnostics, which helps in detecting faults within the system.

Elaborating on the success rate of GRC’s Direct Liquid Cooling system, he said that the projects in 2018 saw a decrease in construction costs up to 50%, a drop in energy costs up to 95% and a decrease in maintenance costs up to 50%.

GRC’s Direct Liquid Cooling initiative, Poulin said, is focused on solving real-world problems of power, cooling, location and capital constraints faced by data centre operators. The company’s goal, he added, is to help Information Technology focus on IT without them having to worry about infrastructure. “So far, GRC has successfully deployed its solution in 14 countries,” Poulin said. “We do not have a development in the UAE but are in the process of deploying a unit in the GCC region with our partner in Saudi Arabia.”

Ranjana Konatt is Features Writer at Climate Control Middle East magazine. She may be contacted at ranjana@cpi-industry.com