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Charmeldon Installs PFD To Help Keep The Data Cool For IFL
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One of Europe’s largest single sale of ‘close control’ systems has just been installed in the Data Centre of Internet Facilitators Ltd (IFL) to provide an additional 600kW cooling capacity ensuring the server operating environment is maintained at optimum temperatures.
The 12 City Multi PFD-P500VM-E downflow systems were supplied by wholesaler Kooltech and installed by Manchester based design, installation and maintenance contractor Charmeldon Ltd.
Charmeldon engineers worked closely with Kooltech’s Manchester office to co-ordinate the installation and commissioning works to a tight 10-week programme. Over 2,500 metres of refrigerant pipework was installed within the live data processing environment with minimal disruption to the client.
“IFL operates a Business Class Data Centre and has grown to become the largest provider of carrier neutral colocation services in Manchester,” explained Gary Hall of Charmeldon. “The facility operates 24/7, 365 days a year and provides resilient cooling and power to meet the demands of this state-of-the-art server environment.”
The Mitsubishi Electric PFD units deliver COPs of between 3.83 and 4.14 and met the client’s brief for a highly efficient, environmentally intelligent and scaleable cooling solution. The inverter-driven PFD units accurately and consistently control the temperature to within one degree and are capable of high sensible cooling (SHF) of up to 1.0 – dependant on conditions.
“The free-standing PFD downflow units were selected for their efficiency, reliability and ease of installation. The compact indoor / outdoor unit footprint utilises minimal floor space which is always a key consideration within these environments,” added Gary Hall.
IFL offers unrivalled facilities to businesses looking to outsource their data infrastructure with multiple Tier 1 telecommunications options and an extensive range of bandwidth suppliers offering drastically reduced costs to their customers. The 12 PFD units form part of an ongoing infrastructure investment and provide enhanced cooling efficiency to meet the demands of modern high density server applications.
“These models have other unique advantages over equivalent units such as not needing a goose neck oil trap and they also offer a starting current that is up to ten times less than other models on the market,” explained Kooltech’s Applications Engineer Alan Clarke, whose engineers stripped down the indoor units and reassembled them on site and incorporated inverters for soft start. These reduce the unit start current to just 5 Amps instead of 68 Amps which provides a significant reduction in running current representing a further energy saving for IFL.
Power resilience to the Data Centre is provided by standby generators and the PFD units also offer quick and sequential auto-restart as standard to ensure they are quickly back online should there ever be a utility power failure. The systems are networked / group controlled by a G50 controller providing the client with on site and web based status monitoring.
