At Chatsworth Products (CPI), we engineer product solutions that expertly join quality craftsmanship with the highest energy efficiency possible.
As equipment densities continue to increase, critical attention to airflow management has become a vital practice for optimizing energy efficiency and maintaining enterprise uptime. In response to this, CPI developed its Passive Cooling® Solutions—the most cost- and cooling-effective thermal management breakthrough on the market today. CPI Passive Cooling Solutions provide equipment cooling performance in all elements of the data center mechanical plant, thereby reducing overall energy costs.
Our Passive Cooling Solutions help data centers achieve the internationally recognized, highly coveted, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Certification.
Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), LEED is a green building certification program that recognizes best-in-class building strategies and practices. To receive LEED certification, building projects satisfy prerequisites and earn points to achieve different levels of certification. Data center facilities are especially nuanced in their design and energy requirements, so the USGBC worked with industry leaders in order to develop specific LEED standards for these facilities. In doing so, they found it necessary to increase the data center rating scale from 100 to 110, making it even more challenging for the facilities to achieve a LEED certification.
LEED certification levels include:
- Certified: 40-49 points earned
- Silver: 50-59 points earned
- Gold: 60-79 points earned
- Platinum: 80+ points earned
CPI can contribute to achieving 12-20 credits in the areas of advanced energy metering, low-emitting materials, interior lighting and optimized energy performance. LEED scoring is typically based on a percentage of fulfillment of specified requirements and it is direct CPI contribution that could make a difference in not missing out on vital LEED credits.
With a LEED certification, your data center is automatically recognized as environmentally friendly with proven low-cost operating structure. In addition to the environmental benefits and recognition are the monetary paybacks that come with building a more energy-efficient facility.
CPI Passive Cooling Solutions is the Key
By offering innovative airflow management techniques, CPI Passive Cooling Solutions allow you to maximize your cooling efficiencies without the need for additional CRAC units, in-row air conditioners or liquid cooling solutions. From small applications with heat loads of 2 kW per cabinet to large data center applications with heat densities beyond 30 kW, CPI Passive Cooling Solutions provide advanced thermal management with zero points of failure, thus providing no impediments to Tier IV availability.
CPI Passive Cooling benefits:
- Lowers construction costs relative to active cooling solutions
- Reduces data center cooling costs up to 90%
- Saves up to 40% on total data center energy costs
- Allows for higher Delta T's between the data center cooling air and exhaust air
- Allows for Tier IV operation because there are no potential points of failure requiring redundant systems
- Permits chilled water temperatures to be increased, providing access to more hours of economization and greater chiller efficiency
CPI Passive Cooling applications:
- Mitigating problem cooling areas/hot spots
- Upgrading equipment to higher heat/power densities while using the same space
- Converting an existing space/room/building into a new data center (brownfield)
From the beginning, CPI has demonstrated that our passive cooling concepts are effective and efficient thermal solutions for every level of data center infrastructure. Throughout the development of these solutions, CPI has found that isolation between chilled supply air and heated return air is the key principle for effectively maximizing cooling efficiencies, especially in high-density data centers.
This segregation of hot and cold air will enable you to reduce air handler fan speeds, transform temperature control (from return thermostat set points to supply set points) and raise temperatures to within a few degrees of maximum desired server inlet temperatures.
Additionally, proper air containment also has the ability to improve chiller efficiencies, reduce the total plant cooling capacity, and create more hours of free cooling, helping justify an economizer that otherwise might not have provided adequate payback.
CPI offers three levels of containment:
- Cabling Level - While a vital part of the data center, cabling components have the potential leave gap and spaces at cabinet and surface levels in the data center, allowing for the mixture of hot and cold air. Sealing the cabling openings that enter and exit the data center space and cabinets is an excellent first step towards true isolation.
- Cabinet Level - CPI uses the cabinet itself to create a one-way path for airflow, which eliminates the ability for hot exhaust and cold supply air to mix, allowing you to increase cabinet density while using existing standard cooling equipment for both retrofit and new construction deployments. Cabinet-level containment also provides a thermal seal quality of 95 percent and above for a greater thermal ride-through in the event of cooling source failures. This is due to extra conductive heat absorption and physical isolation of the hottest air.
- Aisle Level - Cold aisle and hot aisle containment solutions create enclosed rows which isolate hot and cold air with the area, reducing bypass airflow around equipment and increasing system efficiency. The flexibility of aisle level containment is perfect for use in both access-floor and slab-floor environments, and installation is easy in both new and existing data center facilities. CPI's hot aisle containment solutions utilize room-level cooling systems, significantly reducing capital expenses, rivaling in-row and liquid rack technologies.
CPI recommends accepted industry best practices of The Green Grid, AFCOM, ASHRAE, TIA, BICSI and more to fulfill its commitment to true energy efficiency.