Slashdot Mirror
"Heat Wheel" Could Lower Data Center Power Bills
miller60 writes "An air conditioning technology called the 'heat wheel' is getting a test drive in data centers, and early adopters cite impressive reductions in their power bills. The heat wheel — also known as a rotary heat exchanger or Kyoto Cooling — is a refinement of cooling systems using outside air. Rather than introducing exterior air directly into the server room (the air economization we discussed recently), the heat wheel briefly mixes the outside air and exhaust air to create an air-to-air heat exchanger. A data center in the Netherlands using this approach only has to use chillers 11 days a year." The article points out that the heat wheel is not new, but it hasn't been applied to data centers until recently.
Because outside air contains all sorts of things that you don't want in your data center: humidity, contamination (dust, pollen), etc. While you could get rid of dust with filters (that would need frequent replacing), there's no simple answer for humidity.
"A data center in the Netherlands using this approach only has to use chillers 11 days a year."
Umm.. yeah... the netherlands is generally a cold place. Not really saying much if the listener knows a little something about geography and weather.