Beating the Heat with Smarter Cooling

Beating the Heat with Smarter Cooling

As demand for high-performance infrastructure continues to grow, energy efficiency and sustainability are becoming critical considerations for organisations selecting a data centre partner. At the heart of this evolution is the need for more intelligent cooling systems capable of supporting increasingly dense IT workloads without the excessive energy consumption traditionally associated with data centres.

At the ARK Data Centres Farnborough campus, advanced cooling technologies and innovative water management systems are helping set a new benchmark for operational efficiency and environmental responsibility.

Moving Beyond Traditional Cooling Methods

Many conventional data centres rely heavily on compressor-based cooling systems that consume significant amounts of electricity and often require large volumes of treated mains water. These systems can become increasingly inefficient as rack densities rise, particularly with the rapid growth of AI, cloud and high-performance computing environments.

ARK Farnborough has taken a different approach.

ARK utilises an advanced “BladeRoom” modular design, with free air and evaporative cooling techniques ARK provides one of the most energy efficient low PUE data centres in the world. Each data hall has two complete independent “Air Optimiser” systems which can each individually handle the entire IT load of the hall providing an N+N resiliency. The Air Optimisers provide cool air treated to the correct temperature and humidity into a shared cold corridor area.

Each cold isle then uses louvers built into the main entrance door to the isle to control the amount of air drawn in. These are automatically adjusted to provide only  the right amount of air flow that is required to cool the IT load of that specific isle; so no cooling capacity is wasted. Every rack has blanking panels to contain all the cold air in the cold isle so it can only pass to the hot isle if it has been drawn through a server where cooling is actually needed. Once the air reaches the hot isles it is then drawn into the main hot isle corridor, where it is either rejected to the outside environment using exhaust louvers, or it can be recycled into the Air Optimiser to warm fresh outside air. When the outside air temperature is below that required from the data hall the cooling is completely controlled by mixing outside cold air with some recycled warm isle air. No chilling or cooling is required to maintain the cold isle temperatures. If the outside temperature is up to 10 degrees warmer than the required cold isle  temperature, water evaporative cooling is used to bring the air temperature down by up to 10 degrees; which is an extremely  energy efficient method to provide cooling.

Sustainable Cooling Through Harvested Water

One of the most innovative aspects of the Farnborough campus is its use of harvested water sourced from onsite dams.

Rather than relying solely on mains water supplies, the site incorporates a rainwater harvesting and storage strategy that supports its cooling infrastructure. This significantly reduces dependence on potable water while helping to improve the long-term sustainability of the facility.

By integrating harvested water into the cooling process, ARK Farnborough is able to support resilient operations while lowering environmental impact — an increasingly important factor for organisations working towards ESG and carbon reduction targets.

Supporting the Next Generation of Infrastructure

As AI workloads, high-density racks and hybrid cloud environments continue to place additional pressure on infrastructure, cooling efficiency is no longer simply an operational consideration — it is a strategic requirement.

Through its innovative BladeRoom architecture and sustainable water management systems, ARK Farnborough provides an environment designed to support modern workloads with improved efficiency, resilience and environmental performance.

To find out more about how Datanet can help, call 01252 810010, or email Datanet Sales or simply fill out the form on our contact page and we will be in touch.