WP#91 Liquid Cooling TCO tool Handbook (English)
The Green Grid · The Green Grid Liquid Cooling Standing Workgroup
The handbook for version 4 of The Green Grid's liquid-cooling cost calculator, comparing air cooling with direct-to-chip and immersion solution categories.
On this page
Overview
This 2023 document (no. 91) is the handbook for version 4 of the total cost of ownership (TCO) calculator produced by The Green Grid's Liquid Cooling Standing Work Group. The tool sets air cooling beside liquid-cooling solution categories such as direct-to-chip and immersion and surfaces the trade-offs. It is a user guide, not a standard. Version 4 implies the calculator has been through at least three earlier revisions.
What distinguishes the method is its data source: inputs are industry-observed ranges provided by members and peer reviewed, not vendor marketing figures. Relying on ranges instead of points implies the result should also be read as a range. The work group itself cautions that outputs are estimates and no substitute for engineering work. In practice, where the input ranges of two solution categories overlap, the difference between them may not be meaningful.
The record does not list which cost items or numeric ranges the tool holds, and the full text requires sign-in, so this page describes structure and method. As a structure, comparing capex, energy, water, space and maintenance by solution category is a useful template. Related frameworks are the ASHRAE TC9.9 liquid-cooling guidelines and OCP Advanced Cooling Solutions. Filling in the same line items for every category is itself instructive, because it makes hidden costs visible.
Key points
- The handbook supports The Green Grid liquid-cooling TCO calculator v4.
- Air cooling is compared against liquid solution categories (direct-to-chip, immersion).
- Inputs are industry-observed, member-provided, peer-reviewed ranges, not vendor marketing.
- The Green Grid treats outputs as estimates, not a substitute for engineering.
- Published 2023 by the Liquid Cooling Standing Work Group.
Using it in design
- Take the structure of the app's air-vs-liquid TCO comparison from this document: capex, energy, water, space and maintenance by solution category.
- Fill the numbers from your own catalogue with engineer review, not from this document.
- Present results as ranges rather than single values, since the inputs are ranges.
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Who should read it
Designers building a cost case for air versus liquid cooling and the people who approve the investment.
Related standards
- ASHRAE TC9.9 Liquid Cooling Guidelines
- OCP Advanced Cooling Solutions
Publication details
- Authors
- The Green Grid Liquid Cooling Standing Workgroup
- Publisher
- The Green Grid
- Year
- 2023
- Document number
- WP 91
- Document language
- English
- Source type
- Industry body
- Access
- Citation only
- Licence
- Copyright retained; citation only — the publisher’s terms apply to the original document
Citation
The Green Grid Liquid Cooling Standing Workgroup (2023). WP#91 Liquid Cooling TCO tool Handbook (English). The Green Grid. WP 91. https://www.thegreengrid.org/en/resources/library-and-tools/560-WP%2391-Liquid-Cooling-TCO-tool-Handbook-%28English%29
Events on this subject
- ISK-SODEX Istanbul 2027
- SC26 – International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis
- Data Center World Middle East
All content and rights belong to the respective authors and publishers. SoSo CAD provides only the citation, its own summary and a link to the source, and is not responsible for the sources' content.
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