Researchers (visit the PEOPLE webpage for more infos)

• Assoc. Prof. Alessandro Romagnoli, PI

• Dr. Fadhel Ayachi, Co-PI

• Dr. Jia Yin Sze, Co-PI

• Dr. Fabio Dal Magro, Collaborator

• Mr. Toby Peters, Collaborator

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Final achievement and status of the project

The project successfully demonstrated that a Cryo-Cogenerator for backup power solutions based on Liquid Air/Nitrogen could be conceived and retrofitted in a Data Centre. The project highlighted that synergy between existing energy carriers and cryogens could offer flexibility, resiliency and reduced Opex and CAPEX for the Cryo-Cogenerator. 

The project delivered a TRL 3 proof of concept (with some lab-scale demonstration of some components) and it now intends to seek funding and collaboration opportunities to push the TRL from 3 to 8.

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Description of the project

A novel zero-emission technology that makes use of cryogens (liquid air or liquid nitrogen) as the energy carrier to generate cooling and electric power for data centre. Cryogen stored at -196°C is successively compressed, gasified by transferring cold energy to the data centre cooling process, then expanded through a cryogenic turbine to deliver the required power output for both auxiliaries and the IT load. Therefore, during power outage (or during on-grid peak demand of electricity), the cryo-system by-passes the conventional chiller(s) and keep assuring inlet conditions to the IT environment in accordance with ASHRAE thermal guidelines for data processing. The system can synergize with renewable energy sources (e.g. solar, geothermal or others), low-grade waste heat recovery processes, as well as cold energy recovery (e.g. LNG) and storage.