Time of the Turbocor

摘要

One of the key areas of innovation in the data centre industry over the past 10 years has been improvement in energy efficiency. It is central to both improving profitability through reducing running costs, and enhancing Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) along with other energy-related metrics to meet the sustainability requirements of corporate clients. Despite the emergence of more temperature tolerant chips, one of the biggest components of data centre power usage remains cooling. There have been attempts to manage this with fresh-air-only ventilation systems, but issues with latent system requirements, space constraints and concerns around reliability and resilience mean that mechanical cooling - of one sort or another - remains the default choice. Mechanical cooling relies on refrigerant compressors, an area of technology that had remained more or less static for decades until the emergence of compact centrifugal compressors 10 years ago. Their appearance marked the start of a new era for air conditioning efficiency. In those early days, few recognised the impact this rather esoteric new technology would have on the market and the wider industry. As one of the first adopters in the world of this new approach, I will admit we were slightly mesmerised by the idea of harnessing magnetic levitation bearings in a compact centrifugal design.