Shell immersion cooling fluids
Find out how Shell’s gas-to-liquids (GTL) technology is enabling the latest immersion cooling solutions and helping data centres become more energy efficient and climate friendly.
Cloud computing, streaming, big data, blockchain, artificial intelligence and social media – society is demanding faster, more immediate data access. This means growing of data centres and computing infrastructure. However, keeping the servers in these centres cool is cost-intensive and uses large amounts of energy.
Full immersion in a thermally conductive, electrically non-conductive (dielectric) coolant is a highly efficient way to keep computer components cool. It can help to cut energy consumption massively and lower carbon dioxide emissions while reducing costs and increasing location flexibility.
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Shell Immersion Cooling Video
Read the transcript
Read the transcript
Title: Shell Immersion Cooling Video_ENG
Duration: 3:52 minutes
Description:
Shell Integrated Immersion Cooling Solution
The integrated Asperitas Immersed Computing® and Shell Immersion Cooling Fluid solution is one of a handful of innovations featured in a World Economic Forum white paper showcasing disruptive innovations in the energy sector judged to be NOVEL, BENEFICIAL TO SOCIETY AND ACCELERATING THE ENERGY TRANSITION.
Shell Immersion Cooling Video_ENG
Transcript
[Background music plays]
uplifting music
[Animated sequence]
Animated + Images + footage
[Text displays]
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Everyday, as our global population grows,
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there is greater demand for faster, more
intelligent and more immediate access to data.
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In this new world, technology continues to
play a fundamental role in our daily lives.
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Our use of data is only going to increase -
and so will our need for datacentres. With a
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fast-evolving landscape, there will soon be
a requirement to have datacentres anywhere.
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Current datacentres remain a significant
consumer of energy resources,
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using around 1% of global electricity supplies.
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With climate change being one of the biggest
challenges facing humanity today, we need a
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solution to run our datacentres more sustainably
and this solution must also offer resiliency.
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Here at Shell, we are proactively innovating
to help overcome these challenges.
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We have collaborated with Asperitas to
engineer energy solutions that have the
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potential to change the landscape
for datacentres around the world.
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Traditional air cooling cannot cope with
the demands of powerful next generation
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server hardware and changing environments
with higher temperatures and humidity.
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Therefore, together with Asperitas, we have
developed an integrated cooling solution
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which enables a lower carbon footprint and
mitigates collective impact at datacentres.
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The immersion cooling solution,
engineered by the experts at Asperitas
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integrates with high-density and
high-performance server hardware;
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where it is being immersed in an
innovative Shell Immersion Cooling Fluid.
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Our solution offers…
- Up to 48% reduction in energy footprint
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- Up to 40% more CPU performance
- Up to 80% physical footprint reduction
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- Up to 99% energy ready for re-use
on max. 55 degree Celsius hot water
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- 30-40% decrease in datacentre CAPEX and OPEX
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- Up to 30% less CO2 emission
- No water consumption needed as it is a closed-loop system
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- Warm water cooling up to 45 degree Celsius
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Inside the immersion cooling solution is
the Shell propriety immersion cooling fluid.
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Shell Immersion Cooling Fluid is a
synthetic, dielectric, single-phase
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immersion cooling liquid made from natural
gas, using Shell’s Gas-To-Liquid technology
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Built for protection and reliability,
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making it a leader of cooling fluids
currently available on the market.
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Forming part of our wider energy eco-system,
our innovative cooling solution also allows
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businesses to expand further into a sustainable
world through the re-use of waste heat as energy.
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As the electronics within the server are
immersed in a fluid, heat can be passed
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on via a closed cycle water circuit and
used for another purpose such as heating.
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In addition, Shell offers a portfolio of
renewable energy services and installations
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as well as a carbon credit solution
through Shell’s nature-based portfolio.
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This solution has been recognised by the
World Economic Forum as one of the best
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Transformational Energy Innovations in the last
decade and we’ve won a number of awards too.
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Our system can be integrated into
almost any datacentre – of any scale.
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Our experts partner with you to
plan and implement the solution
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in order to optimise the return on investment.
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Our vision is clear, we want to provide our customers
with high-performing, sustainable and innovative solutions
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to help them on their decarbonisation journey.
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We can work with you to create
a sustainable tomorrow, today.
How does immersion cooling work?
- Immersion cooling is a way of cooling IT components, including whole servers, by submerging them in a dielectric (electrically non-conductive) fluid.
- Shell Immersion Cooling Fluid, circulates by natural convection or is pumped around to remove heat from the components.
- An added benefit is that this heat can be recovered by water-cooled heat exchangers for reuse in district heating projects.
- Two immersion-cooling technologies are widely available: Single-phase immersion cooling (diagram below), in which the coolant stays as a liquid; and two-phase immersion cooling, where the coolant boils to form a gas before condensing back to a liquid.
Accessible text
Accessible text
How a single-phase immersion cooling system works
The visual shows a schematic technical diagram of a single-phase immersion cooling system.
Text labels accompanying the figure describe how the system works:
- Three tanks contain server banks that are submerged in Shell Immersion Cooling Fluid S5 X.
- Heated cooling fluid rises to the top of the tanks through natural convection (or is pumped). It then flows to a coolant-to-water heat exchanger.
- The heat exchanger cools the cooling fluid to a specified temperature. There are several heat rejection options, including district heating, an evaporative cooling tower, a dry cooler and the existing chilled water loop.
- The chilled cooling fluid is returned to the server tanks and reused to cool the server banks.
Comparing immersion cooling technologies
| Attribute | Aircooling (traditional data centres)* | Liquid cooling: Single-phase cooling, cold plate (water)^ | Liquide cooling: Single-phase cooling, immersion*^ | Liquid cooling: Two-phase cooling (high range applications)^ |
| Cooling capacity | + | ++ | +++ | ++++ |
| Hardware integration | + | ++ | ++ | ++ |
| Hardware reliability | + | – | ++ | + |
| Hardware performance | + | ++ | +++ | +++ |
| Heat recovery | + | ++ | +++ | +++ |
| Initial capital expenditure | + | – | ++ | – – – |
| Operating expenditure | + | ++ | ++ | ++ |
* Infrastructure Services Group, reported in “Global immersion cooling market in data centers – Growth, trends, forecast (2019-2024), Mordor Intelligence (2019) ^ Customer feedback and internal evalution. + Positive comparison - Negative comparison |
The liquid coolant never changes state (no boiling or freezing, etc.) | Mainly for high heat range applications | ||
Compared with air or water cooling, single-phase immersion cooling offers:
Lower total cost of ownership
Requires less equipment, space, energy and maintenance.
Reduction in energy footprint
Eliminates the need for energy-intensive air-conditioning units and reduces carbon energy footprint.
Less carbon dioxide emissions
A lower energy footprint reduces carbon dioxide emissions.
Less floor space
A single-phase cooling system is less complex and eliminates the need for raised floors and aisles between server racks.
Faster CPU performance
A dielectric coolant conducts heat 1,200 times better than air, which enables servers to run faster and cooler.
Less capital and operating expenditure
Smaller physical, energy and carbon footprints make single-phase cooling a more cost-effective option.
Climate and location independence
Can operate effectively in high humidity, ambient temperatures up to 40°C and dusty industrial settings.
Greater reliability
Easy-to-access coolant baths make maintenance tasks quick and simple. Coolant is also reusable.
Shell immersion cooling fluids
Shell Immersion Cooling Fluid S3 X is a synthetic, single-phase immersion cooling fluid designed for the needs of high-performance computing, edge computing and blockchain applications
- Extremely low volatility and safe to handle
Shell is the Open Compute Project Foundation (OCP) Platinum member. To find out more, pleas visit opencompute.org
Discover how Shell immersion cooling fluids can help you save energy and money and reduce your carbon footprint.
Benefits by user
Cloud providers and hyperscale data centres
Optimise efficiency and achieve sustainability goals while standardising facilities for a variety of hardware requirements.
Telecommunication centres
Operate edge data centres anywhere and use existing buildings within their power and cooling availability constraints.
Enterprises
Simplify on-premises data centres for high efficiency and decreased dependency on the public cloud.
Research institutes
Facilitate on-campus high-performance computing environments without the need for advanced data centres with their associated energy and cost demands.
Colocation providers
Facilitate hosting high-density and -performance computer users in a simple and scalable manner.
Block chain operators
Immersion cooling is an alternative to conventional air-cooling that offers energy saving to blockchain computing operations.
Strategic alliance with Microsoft
As part of our strategic alliance with Microsoft launched in 2020, we are progressing immersion coolant pilots at their data centres to keep computer components cool which helps to cut energy consumption and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. re: Shell Annual report 2021; Shell Sustainability report 2021.
DOWNLOADS
Shell Immersion Cooling Fluid S3 X (PDF, 88 kB)
Download our Shell Immersion Cooling Fluid S3 X data sheet.
Shell Immersion Cooling Fluid Material Compatibility Guide (PDF, 206 kB)
This guide is intended to aid end users with the selection of materials for use in conjunction with Shell Immersion Cooling Fluids.
Integrated Immersion Cooling Solutions – Enabling game-changing energy use reduction at data centres (PDF, 6 MB)
Shell Immersion Cooling Fluid tackles data center energy use as part of a wider integrated offer to help center operators meet their climate action ambitions.
Four reasons why blockchain operators are moving to immersion cooling (PDF, 2 MB)
It is only a matter of time before immersion cooling becomes the industry standard for blockchain and data centres across the globe. Download our brochure to learn how you can stay ahead of the curve.
Global innovations from the energy sector 2010–2020 – World Economic Forum report (PDF)
We are proud to announce that Shell and Asperitas feature in the World Economic Forum’s 2020 report on transformational energy innovations (pages 13 and 14). This showcases selected global energy innovations from the past decade that are judged to be novel, beneficial to society and contributing to accelerating the global energy transition.
