Application Feasibility of Passive Radiative Cool Paint on a Stand-Alone Data Center with Adjacent Buildings

Abstract

Unlike typical buildings that require outdoor scenic view, data centers are un-fenestrated facilities for minimizing access vulnerability and preventing unauthorized admission. As a result, data centers provide expansive surface for radiative cooler application. The energy-saving potential of a radiative cool paint on a high-rise data center was explored using a self-created site model. The east-facing wall that received the most solar radiation among the five facets obtained the highest savings in both unshaded and shaded cases. The performance of the cool paint was further improved, and outstanding cooling power of 27–30 W/m2 was achieved when the cool paint was applied to both roof and walls of the data center. Moreover, this study adopted the cool paint to three different sections of the data center (lower, middle and upper) in respective cases. It was discovered that the cooling effect reduced with increasing altitude in the unshaded cases, whereas it was inconsistently affected by the presence of adjacent shading objects that have different heights in the shaded cases.