Feasibility study and multi-objective optimization of seawater cooling systems for data centers: A case study of Caspian Sea

Direct seawater cooling is a clever, passive, and sustainable method for large-scale free cold supply. This method has been previously applied for limited applications, e.g., district cooling systems. One of the continuously increasing demand kinds of the world energy systems is associated with the cooling of data centers. In this study, the feasibility and the optimal design of seawater cooling systems for supplying the cooling demand of data centers are investigated. For this, the thermodynamic model of the data center and the seawater cooling infrastructure is developed, the optimal sizing of the components over an entire year is found, and the optimal operating conditions are determined. All these are carried out for a case study data center to be integrated with a cooling system fed by the Caspian Sea. It was found that a seawater cooling system, deployed at 700 m depth of the Caspian Sea can provide up to 78% energy saving, comparing to the conventional cooling system. This led to a 45% saving in annual electricity consumption and CO2e emission. Besides, the results of the optimization process indicated that a 60% increase in initial costs of the cooling system will result in 77% lower required pumping power.