About The Project

Motivation

Thermal management and energy optimization of high energy demand IT systems equipment in tertiary buildings is an important field of research and development, as it can lead to significant energy savings, improved system performance, and reduced environmental impact. In recent years, various approaches have been proposed and implemented to address the challenges associated with the thermal management and energy optimization of these systems.

Ambition

The project’s initial objective is analyse the thermal management challenges of various representative user cases with considerable IT load in tertiary buildings, and theoretically validate solutions for their challenges, based on advanced liquid cooling technologies and holistic control mechanisms. Later in the project, the main objective will shift to a prototyping phase, doing a trial-and-error process on integrating hardware and software solutions into the energy management system of the 4 pre-defined use-cases, optimising integrated and minimal waste thermal management on a building level, whilecreating and sharing valuable data for future upscaling, standardisation, and awareness building.

Our Objectives

Introducing a thermal need evaluation framework, focusing on energy flows on a building level, and aiming for a zero-waste principle
Developing future-proof cooling hardware for high-density data processing to TRL 5: Laboratory Testing of Integrated/Semi-Integrated System
Improving the energy efficiency and performance of the data centres by developing a digital twinsupported holistic management system
Developing integrated, multi-objective energy management systems, merging energy requirements of IT equipment thermal management with building scale HVAC needs
Creating a complex self-assessment tool for energy management needs in tertiary buildings, and a knowledge-sharing platform to showcase potential improvement pathways
Upscaling the project solutions to the most common specific use cases in tertiary buildings and improving insight for future standardisation need