Imperial College London, hurleypalmerflatt

Embracing a revolutionary Data Centre cooling solution

Project:

Data centre

Value:

£30 million

Imperial College London is a world leading, science-based university with a reputation for excellence in teaching and research.

Imperial College Science, Technology & Medicine required a resilient data centre that could support the whole of the college's property portfolio, which exceeds
500,000 sq m.

hurleypalmerflatt was appointed to deliver a data facility that could meet immediate requirements of 360kW of power with future-proofing to support up to 1,000kW. Protecting data and accommodating high heat compaction server racks with loads in the region of 20kW per cabinet were essential. This equated to a load of 4,700 Watts/sq m compared with the existing design of around 1,000 - 1,200 W/sq m.

It was not possible to relocate the data centre and there was insufficient space available to enable the expansion of the IT load. Traditional chilled water cooling methods could not cope with the potential load so Imperial College embraced C0₂ cooling, developed by hurleypalmerflatt with Trox and Star Refrigeration, which provides approximately seven times more cooling capability. This is its first application anywhere in the world.

Imperial College's data hall now contains the latest in high heat compaction cabinets creating loads in excess of 20kW/cabinet. Each cabinet is provided with rack-mounted cooling utilising rack liquid-carbon-dioxide cooling.

This solution delivered not only the required client specification at a much lower space footprint, but resulted in a "green" approach, using an environmentally benign refrigerant that also delivers cost savings by reducing energy requirements by 15-20%.