Toshiba VRF systems provide solution for cooling computer server rooms in Derbyshire

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Special cowls added to the outdoor units of a Toshiba VRF system for computer server rooms supporting the administration of the whole of Derbyshire help facilitate air rejection from this concealed location.
Computer server rooms supporting the administration of the whole of Derbyshire are being kept at the required temperature by a strategic combination of Toshiba 2-pipe and 3-pipe VRF systems. The SMMS and SHRM systems use R410A. Derby County Council’s main offices occupy the large listed buildings that were formerly a Victoria spa hotel overlooking the town of Matlock. They provide ongoing building-services conundrums for service-and-maintenance contractor Airco Cooling Services. This challenge was to provide very discreet cooling, without interfering with the building fabric, in rooms with ceilings up to 5 m high and limited space for outdoor units. The availability of a narrow outdoor gully space for outdoor units, the need to provide different temperatures in different areas, while allowing 100% backup and capacity for future expansion drove the decision to use VRF air conditioning. Cowls have been attached to the outdoor units to facilitate air rejection from the partially concealed location. Long pipe runs could be provided by SMMS VRF technology, but the installers still had to cope with walls that are 60 cm thick in places. Another issue was that the greater cooling capacity for the expanding server facilities had to be achieved without increasing the demand on the existing electricity supply. Everything pointed to an inverter-driven VRF system. Cooling had to be provided continuously for the servers, so some of the existing water chillers had to be kept in operation for at least part of the new installation. Each area is served by a 2-pipe and a 3-pipe system, providing automatic back-up if a system fails. The two 3-pipe SHRM outdoor units can provide 33.5 kW of cooling and 37.5 kW or heating simultaneously to areas with shared office use. Cassette units serve areas where there are a lot of staff. The four 2-pipe SMMS units supply the server rooms via concealed ducted indoor units. They were specified on the basis of sensible cooling loads. The large ceiling voids are used as a plenum for the air. Using a textile duct for the new fresh-air ventilation helped considerable with the rolling installation programme, as it could be capped off or extended as required. Control is centralised, and zones can be reset if computer equipment has to be moved. This happens frequently, and a high level of flexibility was demanded of the Toshiba system.
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