Development of a cooling control system for data centers utilizing indirect fresh air based on Model Predictive Control

In this paper, a cooling control system based on Model Predictive Control is developed in order to reduce energy consumption of the facility equipment for the modular data center utilizing indirect fresh air, while considering the relationship between energy savings and temperature management of servers. Furthermore, the developed cooling control system is applied to the actual modular data center utilizing indirect fresh air, and its practical effectiveness is verified by conducting a demonstration experiment. To develop the proposed control system, a dynamic mathematical model for the actual modular data center is designed, and the proposed control system is mounted on an existing management server. The control system is able to operate without using a separate hardware controller. As a result, it is revealed that the proposed control system reduces facility's total power consumption by about 49% compared to a conventional system under condition where the supply air flow rate is 20°C.