Airedale begins chiller production at new US plant
26th May 2022
USA: Airedale has commenced production of its OptiChill air-cooled data centre chillers at its new plant in Rockbridge, Virginia.
The $7m investment in the plant, a former warehouse for US parent company Modine, is part of a global expansion strategy and in response to high demand for energy and water efficient cooling solutions for a data centre market.
OptiChill air-cooled chillers have been engineered specifically for the data centre market and designed by Airedale’s DCS engineering team at its global centre of excellence in Leeds, UK. The OptiChill units each provide over 1MW of cooling and have been designed with enhanced free cooling technology, offering a wider free cooling envelope even in high ambient regions.
Teams from Leeds are reported to have travelled back and forth between the UK and US over the past few months in order to support the US plant in building and testing prototypes for the OptiChill range. Following the success completion of this prototype programme, a full production run has now begun.
Airedale’s Rockbridge facility is thought to be ideally located to serve the US market, with Virginia being the largest data centre region in the world. Northern Virginia is home to more than 20% of all known hyperscale data centres worldwide.
In addition to its HQ in Rawdon, Leeds, the new Rockbridge plant joins additional Airedale facilities in Consett (UK), Guadalajara (Spain), Dubai (UAE) and Grenada (US).
