Thermo-Economic Potential of Carnot Batteries for the Waste Heat Recovery of Liquid-Cooled Data Centers with Different Combinations of Heat Pumps and Organic Rankine Cycles

Xiaoyu Zhou, Xinxing Lin, Wen Su (), Ruochen Ding and Yaran Liang
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Xiaoyu Zhou: School of Energy Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China
Xinxing Lin: China Three Gorges Corporation, Science and Technology Research Institute, Beijing 100000, China
Wen Su: School of Energy Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China
Ruochen Ding: China Three Gorges Corporation, Science and Technology Research Institute, Beijing 100000, China
Yaran Liang: School of Energy and Power Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China

Energies, 2025, vol. 18, issue 6, 1-30

Abstract: To fully recover abundant waste heat and reduce the operation cost in liquid-cooled data centers, a Carnot battery consisting of a heat pump (HP) and organic Rankine cycle (ORC) is proposed. Due to the existence of different cycle states for HPs and ORCs, four different cycle combinations are considered. To evaluate and compare their performances, thermo-economic models are developed. Under the design conditions, the optimal working fluid combinations are first determined for each battery. On this basis, thermodynamic and economic performances of the four batteries are analyzed in detail. The results indicate that the system consisting of a subcritical HP/transcritical ORC achieves the highest round-trip efficiency at 76%. Notably, the round-trip efficiency of the system can exceed 100% at low ORC condensing temperatures. Additionally, the system cost is about 767–796 USD/kW∙h, depending on the cycle combinations. Furthermore, the effects of operating parameters on system performances are also investigated. Finally, with the objective of maximum round-trip efficiency, key parameters of four batteries are optimized. The results reveal that the system with a subcritical HP/subcritical ORC attains a maximum round-trip efficiency of 83% after optimization. These research results contribute to the development of green data centers and the reduction of power costs.

Keywords: Carnot battery; heat pump; organic Rankine cycle; heat recovery; data center; thermo-economic analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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