A model for simulation and optimal energy management of Telecom switching plants

The paper reports on the research activities the authors recently started with the aim of improving energy management in Telecom switching plants. Main objective of the research is to minimize the energy consumption associated to room climate control (CC). Specifically in this work, a model of room thermal dynamics was developed. In order to achieve a satisfactory compromise between accuracy, experimental burden and computational time, a grey-box approach was adopted. A lumped capacity description of a selected telecommunication (TLC) equipment room was performed, by applying the first principle of Thermodynamics to a control volume including: walls; TLC equipment; air filling the room; CC system, which mainly consists of free-coolers (FC) and refrigeration units (RU). Therefore, room temperature variation is estimated as function of heat released by TLC equipment, air moved by free-coolers, cold air supplied by the refrigeration units and heat exchange with the surroundings. Model generalization, performed comparing simulations with real measurements, highlighted the very good accuracy guaranteed by the modeling methodology proposed in the paper. Moreover, the relative simplicity and limited number of unknown parameters suggest using the model in optimization analyses aimed at minimizing CC-related energy consumption for a variety of TLC switching plants. Preliminary model-based scenario analyses were carried-out, showing that improved CC system management may result in energy savings as high as 25%