Displacement free cooling for telecommunication base stations

Abstract

Thermal management is an important aspect in designing any telecommunication base stations. Cooling is traditionally counted for 25–50% of the total energy consumption for a typical base station. Accordingly, any effort to reduce the cooling load is a considerable merit for base stations' operators. Using outside fresh air directly as coolant, in a stand-alone unit or a combination with an air conditioning unit, is a well-demonstrated method to reduce total energy consumption in base stations. This article compares a conventional approach in free cooling with a rather different one, which is called displacement free cooling. In the conventional method, the whole air in the shelter is considered as target to cool. In the displacement free cooling a layer of cold air is built up at the bottom of the shelter. This different method results in some benefits in thermal management of base stations and saving more energy compared to the conventional method.