Inertech, LLC, and Skanska’s Mission Critical Center of Excellence recently announced that their jointly developed eOpti-Trax system, being touted as "the most highly advanced and energy efficient building cooling platform available on the market today," has received U.S. patent notice seven months after filing with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
eOpti-Trax has reportedly been recognized by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office and put onto the fast track patent process for “green” energy technologies. Representatives for Intertech and the Skanska Center say this expedited examination, recognition and approval by the USPTO highlights the need to bring this "radically efficient technology innovation" to the U.S. market in the face of increasing competition from other countries.
Traditionally, it would take several years before a patent could be issued, note the organizations.
According to a press release, the new cooling technology platform can reduce water use by 80-97 percent in standard building and power production cooling, as well as dramatically reduce the power consumed to cool the information technology and computing systems in data centers, which are notoriously hungry energy and water users. With the Inertech cooling technology deployed in a data center environment, power usage is purported to be 180x less than a traditional chiller.
The highly advanced cooling system achieved a record-setting 1.012 mechanical Power Utilization Effectiveness (PUE) reading in repeated testing conducted by a research team from the University of Maryland’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. This unprecedented low reading leads the data center industry, where the average mechanical PUE for a facility is 1.4 to 1.6 and greater, claims Inertech.
“We continue to be amazed at what this game-changing technology continues to accomplish,” comments Earl Keisling, CEO of Inertech. “Even in the harshest climates in the world, it maintains its ultra-high efficiencies using 80 percent less water than traditional systems and can even be configured to use zero water, saving millions of gallons in the process, a natural resource that we believe is the ‘next carbon.’”
According to Inertech, the International Energy Agency identifies building cooling systems as one of the areas with the greatest potential for reduction in carbon emissions. For example, the industrialized world uses 39 percent of its water to produce building cooling. The commercial sector in the U.S. alone uses 167 billion kW hours of power each year for building cooling. As water and energy resources become increasingly expensive and scarce, the need for more environmentally sustainable data center solutions is growing more urgent, emphasizes the company.
"Inertech's data center solution offers a clear return on investment through savings on energy and water, and is expected to create substantial growth in construction retrofits,” comments Jakob Carnemark, Senior Vice President of Skanska’s Mission Critical Center of Excellence. “While this will create more green construction jobs, ultimately, the big winner is the environment.”