South Africa has seen a remarkable increase in data centres built in the country’s major economic hubs such as Cape Town and Johannesburg. These data centres require accurate and continuous cooling of server rooms to ensure optimal uptime and performance from their core systems – highlighting the importance of reliability and energy efficiency in air-conditioning systems.

Grundfos provides pumps and controller solutions to local data centres as part of its offering for heating, ventilation and cooling (HVAC) applications. The company emphasises the advanced technology that it has developed for intelligent control and monitoring of its pumps, with its single stage inline pump providing an alternative to traditional end-suction pump technology.

Grundfos asserts that its pumps have long been at the heart of air-conditioning systems for a range of building types, ensuring accurate and controlled circulation, which is seen as key to user comfort and system efficiency. Its TP pump solution is designed to deliver energy efficiency, reliability and controllability which can be achieved by coupling it with the correct motor, controller and variable speed drive.

The company explains that pumps affect the performance of other components in a circulation system, so pump selection is vital when designing or maintaining a commercial air-conditioning installation, such as those required by data centres.

Grundfos notes that the HVAC market is becoming increasingly energy conscious and that the focus in the design of new buildings and retrofitted older buildings, is on better efficiencies and energy savings for the end-user.

The company strives to ensure that it uses premium efficiency motors with high quality drives and that the software through which drives communicate with the motor further extends efficiencies.

Grundfos CUE frequency converters offer speed control for most of its pumps, regardless of size, power range and application area. As one of the latest speed-controlled pump systems, it is designed for a range of applications including commercial HVAC systems. The converters reduce the system’s output when demand drops, by changing the frequency at which the motor runs.

There are also mechanical efficiencies derived from the design and construction of physical elements of the pumps, from volutes to impellers and bearings.