scholarly journals Techno-Economic Analysis of Waste Heat Utilization in Data Centers: Application of Absorption Chiller Systems

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (9) ◽  
pp. 2433
Author(s):  
Leyla Amiri ◽  
Edris Madadian ◽  
Navid Bahrani ◽  
Seyed Ali Ghoreishi-Madiseh

Modern data centers are playing a pivotal role in the global economic situation. Unlike high-quality source of waste heat, it is challenging to recover the decentralized and low-quality waste heat sourced from data centers due to numerous technological and economic hurdles. As such, it is of the utmost importance to explore possible pathways to maximize the energy efficiency of the data centers and to utilize their heat recovery. Absorption chiller systems are a promising technology for the recovery of waste heat at ultra-low temperatures. In fact, the low temperature heat discharged from data centers cannot be retrieved with conventional heat recovery systems. Therefore, the present study investigated feasibility of waste heat recovery from data centers using an absorption chiller system, with the ultimate goal of electrical energy production. To fulfill this objective, a techno-economic assessment of heat recovery using absorption chiller (AC) technique for the data centers with power consumption range of 4.5 to 13.5 MW is performed. The proposed AC system enables saving electricity for the value of 4,340,000 kWh/year and 13,025,000 kWh/year leading to an annual reduction of 3068 and 9208 tons CO2 equivalent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, respectively. The results of this study suggest an optimum change in the design of the data center while reducing the payback period for the investors.

2021 ◽  
Vol 183 ◽  
pp. 116202
Author(s):  
Serafim Georgousopoulos ◽  
Konstantinos Braimakis ◽  
Dimitrios Grimekis ◽  
Sotirios Karellas

2014 ◽  
Vol 575 ◽  
pp. 662-667
Author(s):  
Barghav Subramony Hariharan ◽  
Kaushik Suresh

Organic Rankine Cycles (ORC) is predominantly used in waste heat recovery applications because of their low temperature working range. The main efficiency enhancement operation in an Organic Rankine Cycle is reducing the pump work .The pump converts electrical energy to flow energy. This input reduced and output maintained at the same level gives us a more efficient waste heat recovery system. The pump work can also be achieved by using a material that has the ability to expand on heating and revert back to its original state on cooling. The expansion property of the material is used to compress and drive the operating fluid through the cycle. Material that was observed to possess such properties was Phase Change Material. Conventionally PCM were used as thermal storage to preheat the working fluid in an ORC but a novel idea is to make the PCM utilize the heat rejected from the condenser and do the pump work. This paper discusses the various desirable properties of PCM to perform pump work efficiently and also the general layout and working of ORC system using PCM. The working fluid selected is toluene


The growing concern on energy conservation and reduction of carbon footprint has led to a lot of inventions and innovations in terms of energy-efficient technologies in all the energy consuming applications. The automobile sector is a crucial zone where these technologies have a major role to play due to the sheer abundance of the number of automobiles.Many small refinements, alterations and innovations are happening in this field which has led to furthermore energy economic automobiles than before.But even in an advanced internal combustion engine, about two-thirds of fuel consumed by an automobile is discharged into the surroundings as waste heat. The effect of this is the increase in the surrounding air temperature which in turn contributes significantly to global warming. This paper proposes amethod to reduce the emission of heat from automobiles by designing and implementinga waste heat recovery system for internal combustion (IC) engines. The key aim is to reduce the amount of heat released into the environment and to convert it into useful energy. A thermoelectric generator (TEG) assembly is used to directly convert the wasted heat energy from the automobile into electrical energy. This electrical energy is conditioned using a Cukconverter and maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm is embedded in the converter for impedance matching and maximum power transfer from TEG to the converter. The conditioned output is used to charge the battery of the vehicle. This methodologyalso increases the energy efficiency of the vehicle as a higher capacity battery can be employed.The proposed system can work well under varying temperature conditions to give a constant output. It can be implemented in any mechanical/ electrical systems were there is wastage of heat energy like gas pipelines, wearable electronics, space probes, cookstoves, boilers, thermal vision, etc. One of the thrust areas where this technology can be effectively utilized in today’s world is in electric vehicles where the energy efficiency is the most important factor.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 525-531
Author(s):  
Mahmut Hekim ◽  
Engin Cetin

Geothermal power plants are the plants that provide the conversion of thermal energy in geothermal fluid to electrical energy as a result of the extraction of underground hot water resources to the earth by drilling. The total installed power of geothermal power plants in the field of geothermal resources in Turkey has reached 1,336 MW. The geothermal fluid, which is used for electric power generation in geothermal power plants, is re-injected into the underground wells after electrical energy production. For efficient generation of electrical energy in geothermal power plants, it is aimed to reuse the waste heat energy within the geothermal fluid before it is sent to the re-injection well. To achieve this aim, thermoelectric generator modules which convert waste heat energy to electrical energy can be used. In this study, a thermoelectric generator-based geothermal power plant simulator that converts geothermal fluid waste heat into electrical energy is installed and commissioned in the laboratory conditions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 238 ◽  
pp. 10008
Author(s):  
Kirill Abrosimov ◽  
Federica Sciacchitano ◽  
Gianluca Pasini ◽  
Andrea Baccioli ◽  
Aldo Bischi ◽  
...  

Aiming for the better environmental and economic performance of traditional engines, waste heat recovery (WHR) technologies are actively studied to find their most beneficial applications. In this work, the inverted Brayton cycle (IBC) is investigated as a potential WHR solution for liquefied natural gas (LNG) fuelled transport truck. LNG being one of the less polluting fossil fuels is widely spreading nowadays in different industries due to the rapid development of the LNG supply chain in the world. LNG-fuelled cargo transportation follows this prevailing trend. Based on the overexpansion of flue gases to subatmospheric pressure, inverted Brayton cycle, in turn, is considered a prospective technology of WHR and techno-economic analysis of IBC in several configurations on-board of a heavy transport truck have been assessed. IBC is integrated into the engine cooling system in the basic layout, and additionally, it incorporates LNG regasification process in advanced configurations. Power balance based on Aspen Hysys model enables to perform system optimisation and gives preliminary design parameters of the system components. Cost function approach provides the basis for a preliminary economic assessment of the layouts. Although the system shows fuel economy of maximum about 2.1 %, analysis revealed the necessity to continue the search for better technical solutions in IBC-based systems to make them economically attractive due to high cost of installed equipment.


2020 ◽  
Vol 143 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Araya ◽  
Aaron P. Wemhoff ◽  
Gerard F. Jones ◽  
Amy S. Fleischer

Abstract The ongoing growth in data center rack power density leads to an increased capability for waste heat recovery. Recent studies revealed the organic Rankine cycle (ORC) as a viable means for data center waste heat recovery since the ORC uses waste heat to generate on-site, low-cost electricity, which can produce economic benefits by reducing the overall data center power consumption. This paper describes the first experimental and theoretical study of a lab-scale ORC designed for ultralow grade (40–85 °C) waste heat conditions typical of a data center server rack, and it outlines the implementation of a similar ORC system for a data center. The experimental results show thermal efficiencies ranging from 1.9% at 43 °C to 4.6% at 81 °C. The largest contributors to ORC exergy destruction are the evaporator and condenser due to large fluid temperature differences in the heat exchangers. The average isentropic efficiency of the expander is 70%. A second-law analysis estimates a reduction of 4–8% in data center power requirements when ORC power is fed back into the servers at a waste heat temperature of 90 °C. The data from the lab-scale experiment, when complemented by the thermodynamic model, provide the necessary first step toward advancing this type of waste heat recovery for data centers (DCs).


Author(s):  
Adrienne B. Little ◽  
Srinivas Garimella

Of the total electricity consumption by the United States in 2006, more than 1% was used on data centers alone; a value that continues to rise rapidly. Of the total amount of electricity a data center consumes, at least 30% is used to cool server equipment. The present study conceptualizes and analyzes a novel paradigm consisting of integrated power, cooling, and waste heat recovery and upgrade systems that considerably lowers the energy footprint of data centers. Thus, on-site power generation equipment is used to supply primary electricity needs of the data center. The microturbine-derived waste heat is recovered to run an absorption chiller that supplies the entire cooling load of the data center, essentially providing the requisite cooling without any additional expenditure of primary energy. Furthermore, the waste heat rejected by the data center itself is boosted to a higher temperature with a heat transformer, with the upgraded thermal stream serving as an additional output of the data center with no additional electrical power input. Such upgraded heat can be used for district heating applications in neighboring residential buildings, or as process heat for commercial end uses such as laundries, hospitals and restaurants. With such a system, the primary energy usage of the data center as a whole can be reduced by about 23 percent while still addressing the high-flux cooling loads, in addition to providing a new income stream through the sales of upgraded thermal energy. Given the large and fast-escalating energy consumption patterns of data centers, this novel, integrated approach to electricity and cooling supply, and waste heat recovery and upgrade will substantially reduce primary energy consumption for this important end use worldwide.


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