GeoThermal Data Center Cooling Heat Exchangers

For other fluid temperatures required in to a fancoil wher DATA centers are not direct-fluid-cooled (say below a 20f difference from the Earth Coupled Loop ground temperature is required, i.e.- below 75f fluid entering to use, in 55f ground at 12 foot depths used in the summer) - Coupled to smaller chillers than usually seen air-cooled and loops coupled to dry-coolers, towers, etc, could have (been done) differential controllers selecting best times for direct use, and then constantly cooling a "hot" ground loop through cooler evenings, etc.

JP GEO, 2008

You tout this as if it were new and revolutionary, it is not. There are many press releases about reputable companies designing such facilities (one is in Iceland!), curiously though, they're dated 200-2010 and it's hard to determine if they ever saw the light of day felt the coolth of the earth.

From Gartner Group IT Glossary:

"...Geothermal cooling is different from using geothermal energy to generate power. It uses the near-constant temperature of the earth just below the surface to provide cooling capability. Geothermal cooling is not new; throughout history, people have kept foods and beverages, such as wine, cool by storing them below ground in cellars. For data centers, geothermal cooling is implemented using a closed-loop piping system filled with water and/or a coolant that runs through vertical wells under the ground, filled with a heat-transferring fill..."

The most difficult part is finding the right geological conditions that just happen to be located near where the cooling is required. After that it becomes an economic decision, do I pay up front for all the capital required for the prep work, permits, drilling, thousands of feet of piping, etc., or do I pay the ongoing electricity costs, offset perhaps, by some photovoltaics, microhydrogeneration, and/or wind turbines.

As more buildings strive for LEED certification, more alternative energy sources will be included in their design. But remember that these facilities are 7x24x365 uninterruptible, so there's always concern and cost for backup systems, just in case the "well runs dry" so to speak. And once the realization sets in that the back up systems need to be sized accordingly, the bean counters start balking at the costs that may not be offset by the savings. Has this been happening to your company?

I hope that article does not dissuade you from the many opportunities in 40" rain fall and up US territories with the need for direct cooling, but also the need for heat recovery without refrigeration nor towers as the primary.

Good point about not back up bu supplemental conventional associated equipment installs. Is that not like supplemental heat to other heat pump and GeoThermal heat pump apps wher to not size the expensive refrigeration systems for 100% of loads?

however, too, kinda like some other "institutions" that although needed to be changed immediately, disruption to jobs and manufacturing and selling and profits just get in the way too, so as Dr Gene Merchant and my GFather Prof Hans Ernst pointed out: People with the human remaining input must always be infused with technological, scientific changes. (Milacron's notes about those two directors of research and inventions.)

"the well run dry" worries have been coupled with "cheaper-chicken" planing, known by excavators and well drillers, as I look in to the article posted.

But for those planned accurately and performing 20 years later, and 'smaller' tower-buildings over 250 tons, in Dayton Oh of over 40 years, open well-to-well are not running dry- hybrids with with such are in the afore-posted Dr kavanaugh Source geothermal 1996 articles, demonstrating "not new". as well

DIRECT cooling to heat recovery and ice-melting and then later (perhaps for GeoThermal tax credits, T-in some units, those Corner Consoles, others and splits) .

"do I pay"

certainly not without ascertaining the lease or mortgage or ROI with a first years pay out

compared to

non tech to TONS of cooling with a systemic model of hybridization to couple with say a tower or other refrigeration and or dry coolers

balanced

with Hot Water production from the refrigeration, or heat recovery and temp differential direction and control.

time to be a "CONTROL ENTHUSIAST" again and bring the Earth and the Sun and the Wind and more to more effectuallity, I believe