Inefficient cooling systems and rudimentary control methods are accountable for the significant cooling energy consumption in telecommunication base stations (TBSs). To address this issue, our study explore.
Data centres (DCs) and telecommunication base stations (TBSs) are energy intensive with ∼40% of the energy consumption for cooling. Here, we provide a comprehensive review on recent research on energy-saving technologies for cooling DCs and TBSs, covering free-cooling, liquid-cooling, two-phase cooling and thermal energy storage based cooling.
How does a DC & TBS cooling system work?
3. Cooling methods and performance The cooling of DCs and TBSs is mainly achieved using computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units, which consists of a vapour compression refrigeration system for cooling and a cold/hot aisle layout (Fig. 3) (Nada et al., 2016).
How does a heat pipe based cooling system work?
Wang et al. developed a heat pipe based cooling system containing a phase change material (PCM) unit to extend the effective cooling time of the heat pipe and to maximize the use of the outdoor cooling source. This PCM unit was integrated with a condenser, absorbing cold energy from the external environment.
Fig. 8 shows a water-side indirect free cooling system (Nadjahi et al., 2018), which usually uses a heat exchanger or a cooling tower to obtain the cold energy from the environment cold water to cool the indoor air in DCs and TBSs.
To maintain the indoor temperature of DCs or TBSs, the computer room air conditioning (CRAC) system and chilled-water system have been developed which are energy intensive (Borah et al., 2015) and contribute more carbon emissions.
Kanbur et al. (2021) studied two different immersion cooling systems for DCs, including single-phase and two-phase systems (Fig. 10), and performed thermodynamic assessments. Their results showed that the two-phase immersion cooling system had a COP of 72–79% higher than that of the single-phase cooling system over a power range of 6.6–15.9 kW.