Discussion on application of evaporative cooling and waste heat recovery systems to Tibetan data centers

In recent years, the data center industry in Tibetan area has developed rapidly, and its energy consumption and annual heat generation have also increased on a large scale. In order to improve the energy utilization efficiency of data centers, this paper takes a data center in Lhasa, Tibet as the research object, and through the actual measurement and analysis of the air conditioning system of the first phase of the project, it is proposed to adopt the heat recovery type evaporative cooling air conditioning system in the construction of the second phase project. The enthalpy difference laboratory is used to simulate the outdoor conditions in the Tibetan area, the performance of the unit is tested, and the energy saving and economy of the system are calculated and analysed. The results show that the optimal water filling density is 1 800 kg/(m2·h) under the evaporative cooling mode of the unit, and the optimal operating wind speed is 2.4 m/s. Although the low atmospheric pressure in Tibetan area is beneficial to improve the direct evaporative cooling efficiency of the units, the actual cooling capacity of the units is greatly affected. The experimental test results of the heat recovery module of the unit show that when the installation rate of the cabinet in the computer room is 100%, the maximum heat recovery capacity can reach 264.78 kW, which has significant energy saving and economy.