Analysis of cost-saving retrofit for peak shaving and valley filling cool storage system in a data center in Hunan Province

To address the high energy consumption issue in data centers, this paper proposes a cost-saving retrofit scheme for a peak shaving and valley filling system based on water cool storage technology. By analysing the characteristics of a 4-fold peak-to-valley electricity price difference in Zhuzhou, Hunan Province, and combining it with the redundant cooling architecture of the data center, an operational mode of “storing cold during nighttime valley electricity periods and releasing cold during daytime peak electricity periods” is established. This mode utilizes an open-type cool storage tank for energy storage to achieve dual functions of 8-hour emergency cooling supply and electricity price arbitrage. The study demonstrates that water cool storage technology, through the collaboration of equipment redundancy reuse and natural cold sources, offers both safety and economic efficiency, providing an effective path for cost-saving retrofits in large-scale data centers.