Austin, Texas (July 22, 2013)—Emerging cooling technologies aimed at reducing operational expenses within data centers will have the largest compound average growth rate (CAGR) among all cooling technologies, with a CAGR of 13.1 percent over the next five years, according to a new report by IHS.
Such cost savings are becoming critical as operational expenses within data centers keep rising, due not only to increasing power densities but also to the growing importance of IT operations in business activities, according to the report entitled the “World Market for Data Center Cooling—2013 Edition.”
“Cooling equipment in general consumes anywhere from 30 to 50 percent of the total energy use of a typical data center,” said Andrés Gallardo, research analyst for data center and critical infrastructure at IHS. “The apparatus is necessary to run a data center, but it does not have a direct impact on any company’s revenues. Even so, cost-saving strategies could significantly reduce this expense and allow the company to allocate those resources to revenue-generating activities.”
For their part, emerging cooling technologies are expected to grow at nearly three times the forecast rate of the total data center cooling market, even though they remain just a small part of the market. These technologies include water and air-side economizers, evaporative and adiabatic cooling and custom air handlers.
“Call them what you want, the fact is that data center managers and designers are looking for ways to reduce operational costs,” Gallardo added. “This is just the tip of the iceberg, and that is why there is such a low installed base. As the ‘meat-locker’ mentality starts to fade away and people realize that it is possible to reliably run a data center at 72°F—or even as high as 90°F—as opposed to 50°F, these technologies could eventually reach mainstream users.”
The Americas and the collective Europe-Middle East-Africa (EMEA) region have a CAGR slightly higher than the market average, driven by the adoption of emerging technologies in the United States and Western Europe. Growth in the U.S. will be spurred by the latest standards published by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). ASHRAE’s current standard, the 90.1, requires the adoption of free-cooling technologies in the data center. The group is currently working on a new standard that will not require using a specific technology but rather allow data center operators to choose their preferred method for improving power-usage effectiveness (PUE) inside a data center.
The attached figure presents the IHS forecast of global revenue for various heat-rejection methods used in data cooling centers.
“Although it would seem counterintuitive to think that the new standard will help emerging technologies, the truth is that an emphasis on PUE will require data centers to become more creative in their strategy to cool down servers,” Gallardo continued. “This will translate into growth of other emerging technologies, such as adiabatic cooling, or even niche technologies like immersion cooling. Also, this measure will be easier to enforce, allowing local jurisdictions to adopt this standard sooner.”
For more information, www.ihs.com
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