Cooling Control of Modular Data Center Utilizing Fresh Air in Consideration of ICT Equipment Temperature Management and Energy Saving Based on Model Predictive Control

Abstract

A cooling control method on the basis of a model predictive control (MPC) for a modular data center utilizing fresh air is proposed. The proposed control method reduces the total energy consumption of information communication technology (ICT) equipment and cooling facilities in the data center while considering a relationship between energy savings and the temperature management of ICT equipment. The proposed method controls the maximum temperature of the central processing unit (CPU) in all of the servers by using the data center's cooling fans. In designing the proposed method, a prediction model was developed to represent the CPU temperature by the revolution speed of the data center's fans, the fresh-air temperature, the utilization of servers, and other factors. Furthermore, the proposed control method was applied to the actual modular data center. The energy consumption of the proposed method is compared with that of a conventional method, which has controlled the temperature difference between the inlet and outlet of the server racks on the basis of proportional integral (PI) control. Actual comparison experiments with the conventional method are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results show that the proposed method realizes energy savings of more than 20% when compared with the conventional method in the actual modular data center.