Arsames Energy

Advanced Cooling for Hyperscales

Data centers demand constant cooling to keep servers running safely. Traditionally, this cooling consumes vast amounts of electricity and water, adding to the operating costs. Waste heat recovery can change the equation.
BUILDINGS ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND RATING CONCEPT WITH ENERGY CERTIFICATION CLASSES according to the new European law called Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) - Concept with magnifying glass

The Hidden Value of Waste Heat: A Comparative Study of Cooling Efficiency and Water Savings

Big Picture -- Cooling systems demand enormous amounts of electricity and, in many cases, significant water for evaporative processes—costs that scale rapidly as data centers grow. With rising energy prices and increasing water scarcity, reducing both burdens is no longer optional but essential for sustainable, resilient operations. Smarter cooling and waste‑heat‑aware design offer a path to lower resource use while supporting the digital infrastructure the world depends on.
Data center cooling with heat pump
System A

Heat Pump Cooling

Heat pump cooling for data centers works by extracting low-grade waste heat from server racks and using a refrigeration cycle to both cool the facility and reject the heat to the environment, often through evaporative cooling.

data center waste heat recovery ORC
System B

Heat Recovery

An Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) helps cool data centers by capturing low‑temperature server heat and converting part of it into electricity, thereby reducing the electricity consumption of cooling systems in data centers.

data center hybrid cooling
System C

Hybrid Cooling with Heat Recovery

Hybrid heat pump–ORC cooling improves data center efficiency by upgrading low‑grade waste heat to higher temperatures, enabling electricity generation and reducing the burden on conventional cooling towers

Comparative Case Study

This case study evaluates the energy and water efficiency of three cooling systems A, B, and C used to cool a 300-kilowatt server rack operating at 80 °C in a data center located in ambient temperature of 25 °C. System A employs a heat pump to upgrade low-grade waste heat and reject it efficiently; System B uses an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) to convert part of the waste heat into electricity; and System C combines both approaches in a hybrid configuration to maximize heat recovery and minimize cooling demand. 

Both the ORC and the hybrid system generate positive electricity by recovering waste‑heat from the cooling process, and the hybrid system adds the advantage of using the least cooling‑tower water usage of all three systems.