Development and composition of a data center heat recovery system and evaluation of annual operation performance

摘要

The huge energy consumption of data centers has reached 416.2 billion kWh of electricity, which is responsible for 2% of the world's total electricity consumption in 2017. Data center heat recovery for district heating is one of the most promising methods to reuse data center low grade waste heat. This paper proposes a heat recovery system with a heat pump/heat pipe integrated unit based on three-fluid heat exchanger. The system operates in three modes: heat recovery mode, heat pipe mode and mechanical cooling mode. Experimental results show that the comprehensive energy efficiency ratio of heat recovery mode reaches 4.47 when the heating supply water temperature is 50 °C. Annual performance of the heat recovery system in a 5 kW data center is analyzed in Tianjin. Results show that the comprehensive energy efficiency ratio of the whole system throughout the year is 4.75, which indicates great potential in heat recovery for district heating at cold regions.