As equipment is increasingly able to operate at higher temperatures, replacing mechanical cooling with free cooling systems using ambient air to cool telecom shelters and data centres can significantly reduce energy costs. To find out more, TowerXchange spoke to Paul Crawford, General Manager at DAQS Europe.
TowerXchange: Where does DAQS fit into the telecoms infrastructure ecosystem?
Paul Crawford, General Manager, DAQS Europe:
DAQS Europe - ‘The Free Cooling Company’ is dedicated to the design and manufacture of innovative, highly energy efficient cooling solutions for telecom/IT applications. Our designs are built upon Free Air Cooling principles, incorporating highly efficient EC fan technology.
Whether your application is a radio base station, switch room or data centre; on or off grid, or high ambient temperature application, we have a solution to meet your needs.
All our product solutions are energy efficient, flexible, modular and moreover ‘futureproof’, interfacing with all industry standard communication protocols as standard.
TowerXchange: For our non-technical readers, please introduce us to the concept of free cooling systems and outdoor equipment, and please explain how use of these systems is helping emerging market MNOs and towercos reduce crippling energy opex at cell sites?
Paul Crawford, General Manager, DAQS Europe:
Our free cooling systems use external ambient air to cool telecom shelters and switch cabinets. The system is interfaced with the existing air conditioning unit which uses a much greater amount of energy to cool the space. The system will always look to use the ambient air to maintain the setpoint in the shelter and when it can no longer do so, the unit switches over to the air conditioning unit.
ETSI & ASHRAE recommendations in recent years allow wider climatic limits for the operation of electronic equipment. This has in turn allowed MNOs to increase the setpoint in the shelter which means that external ambient air can be used to cool the shelter for longer periods of time. The use of free cooling can give the MNO up to 90% savings on opex costs. Maintenance costs of existing air conditioning equipment and the life of this equipment can be extended.
TowerXchange: How do you apply similar principles to data centres?
Paul Crawford, General Manager, DAQS Europe:
50% of the total power consumed in an existing data centre can be attributed to cooling systems. In general, compressor cooling and inefficient fan technologies are the primary users. As the data centre is operational 24/7/365, year on year, the use of free cooling to maintain the temperature is a viable option.
Similar to telecoms, the server equipment can now live at higher temperatures which allows for a wider range of temperature and humidity limits to be accepted. We offer solutions that will use external ambient air to cool the data centre when possible and switch to air conditioning units thereafter. The use of this type of system also adds N+1 redundancy as the heat can continue to be removed from the data centre in the event of an air conditioning failure.
TowerXchange: What are DAQS’ credentials in emerging markets?
Paul Crawford, General Manager, DAQS Europe:
DAQS Europe currently have live projects in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, South Africa & Tunisia.
TowerXchange: I know it varies massively according to the requirements of a site, but on the ‘back of an envelope’, what is the typical capex on a per site basis to invest in energy efficient cooling systems, what magnitude of energy reduction can be achieved, and what is the timeline to RoI?
Paul Crawford, General Manager, DAQS Europe:
The costs of the system can vary significantly depending on the control systems required.
We offer stand alone control which will modulate the fan speed dependent on the internal air temperature. We also offer our FC10CS microprocessor control system which offers a full control solution from basic alarm functionality right up to full remote communication with the system. The energy reduction will vary dependent on the prevailing climatic conditions in the area, but in general payback would be under 18 months. Examples of energy reductions - Morocco up to 80%; Cape Town up to 90%.
TowerXchange: To sum up, how would you differentiate DAQS from your competitors?
Paul Crawford, General Manager, DAQS Europe:
In general, in order to maximise the return on investment for this type of project, the two key variables to consider when comparing different solutions are capital cost and cooling capacity. The positive impact of a lower capex is obvious, but cooling performance is the most important limiting factor that controls the achievable savings on any free-cooling project. Simply put; the higher the free-cooling capacity, the longer mechanical cooling can remain idle and more money is saved. Our solutions deliver a greater cooling capacity than those of our competitors whilst minimising energy usage.
