APC by Schneider Electric announced a new modular cooling solution for data centers, which offers automatic switching between different modes of economized cooling. Depending on weather conditions, the new EcoBreeze, placed outside the data center perimeter, switches between air-to-air and indirect evaporative heat exchange to optimize its energy use.

APC announced the solution at the annual DataceterDynamics conference in London on Tuesday.

APC's VP of Rack and Cooling Solutions Pat Johnson said the unit's modular design enables it to scale along with the data center, as its cooling requirements grow. "These features, coupled with the fact that the unit uses outside air and is able to automatically switch to the most efficient of cooling modes really set the EcoBreeze apart from other cooling solutions," he said in a statement.

In either mode, the solution does not let outside air come in contact with data center air.

When the unit is in the air-to-air heat-exchange mode, it takes hot exhaust air from the data center floor through its electronically commutated fans and passes it through channels of the indirect evaporative cooler. It then passes through a cooling coil before returning to the data center.

When in the indirect evaporative heat-exchange mode, the unit cools IT exhaust air by passing it through an evaporative medium outside of the heat exchanger channels.

The solution has a proportional R410a refrigerant system and an onboard water-treatment system, eliminating the need for chemical water treatment.

EcoBreeze comes in 50kW modules, which can be grouped up to four (200kW) or eight (400kW) modules of cooling. In addition to giving customers the ability to scale their cooling capacity gradually, the solution provides redundancy at the frame level.

The solution will be available for purchase sometime in 2011. According to APC, it meets ASHRAE 90.1/TC 9.9 requirements for efficiency and economization.