by Rebecca Walker — May 18, 2011 —Schneider Electric unveiled its newest data center innovation: modular power and cooling. Designed as a nearly plug-and-play solution to the rapidly expanding demand for enterprise data center computer power, Schneider says the modules can be designed and installed in a matter of weeks rather than months.
The new products are both the latest expansion of and an attempt to capitalize on the shift in corporate data centers away from unique, custom-built facilities and toward modular and containerized systems.
As more companies need more and larger data centers, simplifying the process of building, developing and then powering and cooling those facilities is a hot-button issue. And Schneider Electric believes the new modules will also be much cheaper to install.
The core of Schneider’s new power and cooling architecture is modular, container-like structures that take up the same amount of area as four parking-lot spaces and can scale in increments of 500 kilowatts to match current and future data center demands.
There are two cooling modules and one power module in the company’s latest offering. EcoBreeze is a chilled-air cooling module that implements adaptable cooling based on environmental conditions; the system can detect conditions and automatically select either indirect evaporative cooling or air-to-air heat exchange. The company has also created a Chilled Water Cooling Module, which consists of six modular, highly efficient chillers, two economizers and a fully integrated pump house.
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