The data center industry is seeing a shift to pre-fabricated, modular buildings to house electrical equipment for rapid expansion. These unoccupied modular buildings contain critical components that support the data center, such UPS modules, battery systems, switchgear, and static switches.

In the growing edge data center market, these modular buildings may also contain IT equipment, such as network switches and servers. All these components that support our data infrastructure generate heat and need to be cooled to prevent premature equipment failures and costly downtime.

In typical modular building applications, it is very common to see a through-wall comfort cooling product used to cool the building. These through wall coolers are a quality product that can fit a large range of applications, with the intent to make the ambient air suitable and comfortable for occupancy.

But are these products the right fit for keeping our critical infrastructure cool? 

The air conditioning unit must reduce the air temperature (Sensible Cooling Capacity, SCC) and remove humidity (Latent Cooling Capacity, LCC). These two parts make up your Total Cooling Capacity (TCC). The relationship between SCC and TCC is called Sensible Heat Ratio (SHR).

SHR = SCC/TCC

Because the electrical equipment is in an unoccupied room and does not generate humidity, you don’t need high latent cooling capacity (in short, the ability to remove moisture from the surrounding environment) that comfort cooling products provide. 

For data center applications, it is common to see a SHR from 0.9 to 1.0.

The ideal SHR is 1.0; a higher SHR indicates the better use of energy is being used to cool the electrical equipment. No energy wasted. 

Mitsubishi Electric’s CritiCool^® product for data center applications, the DX-P, is designed from the ground up for cooling IT and electrical components that can tolerate and function in a wide range of % relative humidity.