Chilled Water Plants and Heat Rejection Engineering
محطات المياه المبردة وهندسة طرد الحرارة
- Next date
- 25–29 January 2027Berlin
- Fees from
- £2,950per delegate
- Formats
- Classroom · Online4 sessions
- Duration
- 5 daysCertificate
Overview
The chilled water plant and its heat rejection equipment are usually the largest energy consumers in a data center after the IT load itself. Chillers, cooling towers, dry coolers, pumps and heat exchangers must deliver stable water temperatures around the clock, survive equipment failures without interrupting cooling, and still operate efficiently across seasons and partial loads. Poor plant design can lock a facility into high energy bills and limited capacity for decades, while a well-engineered plant can deliver years of free cooling and support the higher water temperatures needed for liquid cooled AI equipment.
This course provides engineers with a complete design view of chilled water and heat rejection systems for data centers. Participants learn refrigeration cycle fundamentals, chiller types and performance curves, cooling tower and dry cooler selection, and plant configurations for redundancy and concurrent maintainability. The course covers primary and secondary pumping, variable flow, thermal storage, water-side economization and plant control sequences. It also explains water consumption, water treatment for open systems, part-load optimization, restart after power loss, and how plant design must change as supply temperatures rise to serve direct liquid cooling and high-density deployments.
Objectives
- Explain refrigeration cycle fundamentals and chiller performance characteristics
- Select chillers, cooling towers and dry coolers for data center duty
- Design plant configurations that meet redundancy and maintainability targets
- Design pumping arrangements, variable flow systems and thermal storage
- Apply water-side economization and part-load optimization strategies
- Develop plant control sequences, including restart after power interruption
- Assess water consumption and treatment needs for open heat rejection systems
- Adapt plant design for higher supply temperatures used by liquid cooling
Who should attend
Mechanical and HVAC engineers, central plant designers, energy engineers and facility engineering managers.
Training methodology
The course combines engineering theory with plant sizing calculations, equipment selection exercises and analysis of real operating data. Participants read chiller and cooling tower performance curves, build an annual plant energy model using weather data, compare plant configurations for redundancy and cost, and write a simplified control sequence. Trend data from operating plants is used to diagnose inefficiencies and control problems. Group work focuses on a single plant design case developed across the week. Each day ends with a design review and a short knowledge check.
Programme outline
Day1Refrigeration and Chiller Fundamentals
- The vapor compression cycle and the factors that drive chiller efficiency
- Centrifugal, screw and scroll chillers and their typical data center applications
- Water-cooled versus air-cooled chillers and their impact on site and energy
- Refrigerant options, regulatory trends and safety considerations for plant rooms
- Reading chiller performance curves at full load and part load conditions
- The effect of condenser and leaving water temperatures on annual efficiency
- Exercise: selecting chillers from manufacturer data for a defined cooling load
Day2Heat Rejection Equipment
- Open and closed circuit cooling towers and their performance characteristics
- Dry coolers, adiabatic coolers and hybrid systems for water-limited sites
- Approach temperature, wet-bulb design conditions and how they drive equipment sizing
- Water consumption, blowdown, drift and the water treatment needs of open towers
- Freeze protection, noise limits and space planning for rooftop and yard equipment
- Heat reuse opportunities for district heating and nearby industrial users
- Exercise: comparing a cooling tower plant and a dry cooler plant for one site
Day3Plant Configuration and Hydronics
- Redundancy levels and concurrent maintainability applied to chilled water plants
- Primary-only variable flow versus primary-secondary pumping arrangements and their trade-offs
- Header, dedicated and distributed plant configurations compared for resilience and cost
- Plate heat exchangers used for water-side economization and hydraulic system separation
- Thermal energy storage for ride-through during chiller restart after outages
- Pipe sizing, bypass control and minimum flow protection for chillers
- Exercise: developing a plant schematic that meets a defined resilience target
Day4Controls and Optimization
- Chiller sequencing, staging logic and strategies for loading chillers at their best efficiency
- Supply water temperature reset and practical techniques for optimizing condenser water
- Economizer changeover logic and avoiding unstable operation at mode transitions
- Plant restart sequences after a utility failure and transfer to standby generators
- Measuring plant efficiency with kW per ton and annual energy indicators
- Using trend data to detect control faults and wasted energy in operating plants
- Exercise: writing a simplified control sequence for a chilled water plant
Day5Designing for Future Loads
- How rising supply temperatures for liquid cooling change plant design choices
- Chiller-free and low-lift designs for warm water liquid cooling systems
- Phased plant expansion to match staged IT deployments and uncertain demand
- Total cost of ownership comparison of alternative plant configurations over the facility life
- Lessons learned from plant failures and capacity shortfalls in operating facilities
- Team project: presenting a complete chilled water and heat rejection design
- Final assessment and discussion of plant challenges in participants' facilities
Dates and fees
Fees are in GBP. per delegate.
Certificate
Every delegate who attends the full programme receives a Harfard Technology certificate of completion stating the course title, duration, dates and venue.
Frequently asked questions
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