raw · articles · ingested 2026-06-19
Data-Center Adsorption Cooling Deployments — CoolMUC-2 (LRZ) and iDataCool (Regensburg)
Source: https://doku.lrz.de/coolmuc-2-11484376.html
Provenance: LRZ documentation + arXiv:1309.4887 (iDataCool, open access) + IEEE 7896917.
Key findings
- CoolMUC-2 at Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (Munich): six SorTech eCoo 2.0 silica-gel/water adsorption chillers driven by hot-water-cooled HPC racks (384 Lenovo NeXtScale nodes); the only Top500 production HPC system combined with adsorption refrigeration.
- Measured 2016: ~120 kW waste heat at 45 C -> ~50 kW cooling at 21 C; electrical COP ~12 (cooling per kW electricity), ~2-3x more efficient than mechanical chillers.
- Operated 9 years (decommissioned Dec 2024). Standout: very low 45 C driving temp (most adsorption chillers want 65-90 C).
- iDataCool (University of Regensburg + IBM): 216 hot-water-cooled nodes; ~70 C coolant drove an InvenSor LTC 09; measured chiller COP rose ~90% going 57 -> 70 C driving temp; ~25% of input energy reusable as cooling.
- Lesson learned: poor rack insulation caused major heat loss — design insulation early (reuse fraction could ~double).