A 5MW, state-of-the-art testing laboratory was recently commissioned at the Modine Rockbridge facility in Virginia, United States.
The aim is to expand the services that Airedale by Modine can offer data centre customers seeking sustainable cooling solutions.
Modine's Rockbridge facility opened in 2022 to manufacture chillers to meet the growing demand from US data centre customers.
Headquartered in the UK, Modine provides chillers and air handling units for mission critical HVAC.
The new lab can test a complete range of air conditioning equipment, accommodating air-cooled chillers up to 2.1MW and water-cooled chillers up to 5MW.
Crucially for data centre applications, the ambient temperature inside the chamber can be reduced to prove chiller free cooling performance.
Free cooling is the process of using external ambient temperature to reject heat, rather than using the refrigeration process. If used within an optimized system, free cooling can help a data centre significantly reduce its energy consumption and carbon footprint.
The company also launched its first US-based service team to provide ongoing support to customers in the field. The team offers coverage for spare parts, planned maintenance and emergency response, providing reassurance to customers when every second counts.
The facility is working with colleges in Northern Virginia to recruit and train service engineers, either as new graduates who will receive fast-tracked training or through apprenticeships.
These investments coincide with deliveries of the first Airedale chillers and fan walls to key customer Corscale. To date, 28 OptiChill Free Cool chillers and 64 fan walls have been transported to Corscale's 130-acre Gainesville Crossing Data Campus in Northern Virginia, with further deliveries planned to complete the order announced last year.
Once complete, the chillers will provide cooling to 8 x 9MW data halls in what is eventually planned to be a 300MW development.