Carrier Rental Systems keeps data centre up and running

Two 450 kW chillers and a host of other equipment were provided by Carrier Rental Systems to control the temperature in a data centre providing vital billing functions for several major service providers while power feeds serving the fixed cooling installation were interrupted for checking. These power feeds could only be checked at weekends, and once the power was cut off, the air-conditioning system also had to be cut off. Carrier Rental Systems also supplied 18 air-handling units, two pump sets, one buffer tank. Flexible ducting completed the installation. One chiller was set at between 6 and 8°C. The other, which was only required as a standby, was set 2 K higher so that the systems would not fight each other. The 50 series air-handling units were fitted with 600 mm ducting off the top to feed directly into the floor plena in the server halls. One of the three halls was tested each weekend. After the tests, the AHUs were moved to the next hall and fully tested in the new setup to be ready for the weekend. Two Carrier engineers were on standby each weekend. These AHUs fit conveniently through standard doorways. The standby unit was not actually required, but it was essential to provide complete reassurance.