Ilaria Rosella Pagliaro Generating electricity from wind created by artificial devices such as data center cooling fans is possible thanks to an innovative methodology developed in Spain and Colombia
@Dall-E/GreenMe
Can wind from these unusual sources-appliance cooling fans and energy-intensive data centers-generate electricity? This is not science fiction; rather, it’s one novel approach to obtaining energy from wastes of wind created by a cooling system.
The team consisted of two electrical engineers from the Distance University, Madrid, with another colleague from Mision Critica – Data Center of ZFB Technology Services in Colombia have invented a new method of generating electricity through small turbines moved by artificial winds.
©Scientific Reports
Isabel Gil-García, Ana Fernández-Guillamón, and Álvaro Montes-Torres introduce one such method for the collection of energy from man-made airflows in the open-access journal Scientific Reports. They tested how their methodology worked by capturing the wind created by cooling units in a Colombian data center. The approach joins a spate of efforts to capture lost wind energy both indoors and outdoors, from airflow generated by fans in general HVAC systems.
How artificial wind energy is captured
The process has four major steps involved in it. First, there needs to be the location of an artificial wind source. This could be anything from a ship to a truck or even a large-scale fan. Secondly, how much of the energy of the wind is generated and what part of it is still available is measured. By attaching an anemometer, the researchers find out how much actual wind could be used for generating electricity. Ultimately, it assesses the potential energy and then chooses an appropriate technology like a turbine that would best harness that energy.
Above the chiller fans, the team in the Colombian data center installed lightweight and compact Tesup V7 turbines. With the setup, they were able to achieve an annual energy production of 513.82 MWh. This translated into a net reduction of 467.6 MWh in total electricity use once the energy consumption of the fans was accounted for.
