30 www. refrigerationandaircon. co. za RACA Journal I October 2026
Data centres
DATA CENTRE FEATURE SERIES
POWER-HUNGRY CLOUDS, THIRSTY CITIES: CAN SA ' S DATA CENTRES KEEP THEIR COOL?
By Eamonn Ryan
As South Africa positions itself as a data centre hub for the continent, the scale of planned developments is forcing the HVAC & R industry to confront important questions around power, cooling and sustainability.
Speaking at the Pan African Data Centre Conference and Exhibition,
Andrew Koeslag, data centre business development manager at Daikin Africa, says the South African market is rapidly approaching a tipping point. " With our infrastructure, that will put a huge strain on the infrastructure," he said, referring to reports of planned 360MW hyperscale data centre developments in Cape Town.
While facilities of this scale may be considered relatively modest by global hyperscale standards, they represent a significant demand on South Africa ' s power infrastructure. Their successful operation will depend not only on adequate generation capacity but also on how efficiently they are designed, cooled and managed.
Daikin Africa ' s focus lies firmly in the hyperscale market rather than smaller co-location facilities. " We specialise in hyperscale. Anything where there ' s chillers or CDUs, fan walls, on a hyperscale, that ' s where we specialise," says Koeslag.
Across Africa growing internet penetration, smartphone adoption and the rapid uptake of AI technologies are driving unprecedented growth in data demand. What consumers regard as an intangible ' cloud ' experience is anything but intangible from an engineering perspective, he says. This observation highlights a reality that is often overlooked: Every photograph uploaded, banking transaction completed or AI-generated response carries an associated cooling requirement. The digital economy may be virtual, but the infrastructure supporting it remains resolutely physical.
THE CASE FOR LIQUID COOLING Increasing compute densities are challenging conventional cooling approaches, particularly as AI workloads become more prevalent. According to Koeslag, the transition towards liquid cooling technologies is unavoidable. " On-chip cooling is essential. These big 200-300MW facilities will definitely have on-chip cooling."
While some operators remain hesitant about the adoption of liquid cooling technologies in Africa, Koeslag argues that industry preferences cannot override the underlying physics. Higher-density processing inevitably requires cooling solutions that move closer to the heat source.
“ The result is likely to be a prolonged period of hybrid deployments. Existing facilities will continue operating conventional air-cooling systems, while newer, high-density installations increasingly adopt liquid or directto-chip cooling technologies. Designers and contractors will therefore be required to accommodate multiple cooling methodologies within a single facility or across portfolios of existing and new infrastructure. Controls strategies, commissioning practices and maintenance requirements will become significantly more complex as mixed cooling environments become commonplace,” he says.
One of the industry ' s most persistent misconceptions is that colder always means better when it comes to data centre cooling. " If you ' re running too cold, you actually cause your chillers to run less efficiently," Koeslag explains.
He notes that warmer chilled water temperatures can substantially improve chiller performance while simultaneously extending opportunities for free cooling. Operating chilled water temperatures between 20 ° C and 25 ° C allows facilities to take advantage of favourable ambient conditions more frequently than traditional approaches permit.“ At hyperscale, the consequences of inefficient cooling strategies extend well beyond operating costs. A seemingly marginal reduction in efficiency, multiplied across a 200MW or 360MW facility, quickly becomes a matter of broader
Andrew Koeslag, data centre business development manager at Daikin Africa, with his team at Pan-African Data Centre Conference and Exhibition in Johannesburg.
infrastructure significance. Cooling design decisions increasingly influence power consumption, backup power requirements and the overall environmental footprint of these facilities.”
INTELLIGENCE BEYOND THE PLANTROOM Modern data centre cooling systems have evolved far beyond conventional HVAC installations. According to Koeslag, their increasing sophistication is frequently underestimated:“ Today ' s facilities rely on sophisticated integration between building management systems, chiller management platforms and continuous monitoring systems that respond dynamically to changes in ambient conditions and IT loads. Rather than operating as isolated systems, cooling infrastructure exists within a constant optimisation loop.”
For South Africa ' s HVAC & R industry, this presents both a significant opportunity and a substantial responsibility. Intelligent cooling design can materially improve power usage effectiveness( PUE), reduce operational costs and lessen the impact these facilities have on the national grid. Conversely, poorly integrated systems or inadequate commissioning practices can quickly undermine those gains.
The increasing reliance on sophisticated controls also elevates the importance of specialist skills throughout the industry ' s value chain, from design engineers through to commissioning teams and maintenance personnel.
Despite the emphasis placed upon uptime classifications and redundancy architectures, Koeslag suggests that one reality of data centre operation is seldom discussed openly. " People won ' t admit to failures," he observed.
Failures do occur, but well-designed facilities are engineered to absorb those failures through redundancy rather than allowing them to affect operations. The true measure of resilience is therefore not whether components fail, but whether those failures ever impact the IT load. " Failures seldom affect the operation of the data centre because there are redundancies built in," he explains.
" For industries such as banking and telecommunications, the importance of this distinction cannot be overstated. Critical services must remain continuously available. If a data centre goes down, banking systems cannot simply go down with it."
As hyperscale facilities arrive in South Africa, cooling strategy has become inseparable from discussions about energy security, sustainability and national infrastructure planning. Data centres can no longer be regarded simply as large air-conditioning projects. They are critical infrastructure whose success will depend upon achieving a careful balance between uptime, efficiency and environmental responsibility. RACA
© RACA Journal
30 www. refrigerationandaircon. co. za RACA Journal I October 2026