Schroff reduces Munich airport computer centre air conditioning energy usage by more than 60 per cent

The data centre holds 75 server cabinets arranged in three rows in a computer room with an overall volume of 600m3. The room was cooled by five 32kW air conditioners; during normal operation, four were running at full capacity with one as a redundant back-up. After the installation of the Schroff hardware, which was retrofitted to the existing cabinets supplied by a third party, three of the air conditioners running at 50% capacity were enough to cope with the thermal load.

Within the cabinets, the installation of 1U blanking panels at the front of the racks, the rerouting of cable runs, the sealing of the base apertures and the installation of ventilated front doors reduced the top to bottom temperature gradient from 10°C to less than 1°C; because the hot and cold air is segregated, the overall temperature within the cabinets also dropped by about 4°, despite the input temperature from the air conditioner units having increased from 17 to 22°C. Further efficiency savings have been achieved by raising the room temperature from 22 to 28°C. The reduced energy usage, direct cost reduction and the associated reduction in CO2 emissions are a significant step towards carbon-neutral operation of the facility.