Core Driver for Data Center Low-Carbon Transformation

Traditional air-cooled data centers rely on high-power fans and precision air conditioners, with PUE generally exceeding 1.2 and even surpassing 1.5 in high-density scenarios. In contrast, data center liquid cooling technology has formed key advantages in free cooling utilization and full-lifecycle carbon reduction through “liquid heat transfer + system optimization”, becoming a core solution for low-carbon operation.

Significantly Reducing Refrigeration Energy Consumption – High Free Cooling Utilization

The core of liquid cooling’s high free cooling utilization lies in its physical property advantages: the thermal conductivity of cooling fluids is 20-40 times that of air, and the specific heat capacity is more than 4,000 times. The outlet temperature can be stably maintained at 35-45℃, far exceeding the ~20℃ requirement of air cooling, laying a foundation for free cooling utilization.

The high outlet temperature of liquid cooling systems greatly extends the annual adaptation period of free cooling sources. In cold regions, free cooling sources such as outdoor low-temperature water and cooling towers can directly cool the cooling fluid without activating high-energy-consumption compressors. Taking the cold plate liquid cooling system as an example, Soeteck’s data center in Russia adopts the combined solution of “cold plate liquid cooling + cooling tower free cooling”, with an annual free cooling utilization duration of over 300 days (accounting for 82%). During the low-temperature winter period, the cooling fluid is directly cooled by cooling towers, with PUE as low as 1.02, approaching “zero-energy refrigeration”; even in the high-temperature summer period, the free cooling contribution rate still reaches 40% with the help of water temperature regulation devices. The annual PUE is stably below 1.05, reducing refrigeration energy consumption by 65% compared with air-cooled data centers of the same scale.

Covering Design to Operation & Maintenance – Full-Lifecycle Carbon Reduction

Mature data center liquid cooling solutions have extended their low-carbon value to the entire lifecycle including design, construction, operation and maintenance, forming a multi-dimensional carbon reduction system, which is their key competitive advantage over air cooling.

In the design and construction phase, phase-change immersion liquid cooling achieves carbon reduction through high density: the heat transfer efficiency of two-phase liquid cooling is 3-5 times that of single-phase liquid cooling, supporting cabinet power density from 100kW to over 500kW. With the same computing power, the data center area is only 1/3 of that of air cooling, building material consumption is reduced by 60%, and construction carbon emissions are reduced by 45%; a data center with 100,000 servers can reduce carbon emissions by over 80,000 tons.

In the operation and maintenance phase, the closed design of liquid cooling systems further amplifies carbon reduction advantages. The closed pipelines of cold plate liquid cooling can reduce dust accumulation by more than 90%, reducing the equipment cleaning frequency from once a month (air cooling) to once a quarter. For every 10,000 cabinets, it can save about $20000 in cleaning energy consumption and consumable losses annually, corresponding to a carbon emission reduction of over 120 tons; immersion liquid cooling has no fans or filters, reducing equipment failure rate by 60% and operation and maintenance personnel demand by 40%, thus cutting carbon emissions from human resources and management by 35%. Test data from a cloud service provider shows that the operation and maintenance phase carbon emissions of its immersion liquid cooling data center are 28% lower than that of air-cooled data centers.

Implementation Effects of the Two Core Advantages

Benchmark projects verify the effects: a large enterprise’s cold plate liquid cooling data center project (100,000 servers) has an annual free cooling utilization duration of over 320 days, with PUE=1.03 and annual carbon emission reduction of 120,000 tons throughout the lifecycle.

It is worth noting that the benefits of the two core advantages are positively correlated with computing density. Industry calculations show that when the cabinet power density exceeds 50kW, the free cooling utilization rate of liquid cooling systems is 50% higher than that of air cooling, and the full-lifecycle carbon emissions are reduced by more than 30%; when the power density reaches 200kW, the free cooling contribution rate exceeds 70%, and the full-lifecycle carbon emission reduction increases to 50%—which is highly consistent with the low-carbon needs of high-computing scenarios such as AI data centers.