Airedale by Modine invests in expanded service offerings for US data center customers
Testing laboratory, service maintenance team, and apprenticeship program launch at Virginia facility
RACINE, Wis. — A 5-MW testing laboratory was recently commissioned at the Modine Rockbridge facility in Virginia, further expanding the services that Airedale by Modine can offer data center customers. Modine’s Rockbridge facility opened in 2022 to manufacture chillers to meet the growing demand from U.S. data center customers. The new lab can test a complete range of air conditioning equipment, accommodating air-cooled chillers up to 2.1 MW and water-cooled chillers up to 5 MW. Crucially for data center applications, the ambient temperature inside the chamber can be reduced to prove chiller-free cooling performance. Free cooling is the process of using external ambient temperature to reject heat rather than using the refrigeration process. If used within an optimized system, free cooling can help a data center significantly reduce its energy consumption and carbon footprint. The lab also can facilitate quality witness tests for customers to validate chiller performance in person.
In addition, the first U.S.-based service team has been launched to provide ongoing support to data center customers in the field. The team offers coverage for spare parts, planned maintenance, and emergency response, providing reassurance to customers when every second counts. Demonstrating further commitment to developing the local workforce, the Rockbridge facility is working with colleges in Northern Virginia to recruit and train service engineers, either as new graduates who will receive fast-tracked training or through apprenticeships. Apprentices will have a mix of college classes and on-site training, after which they will graduate with an associate’s degree in engineering.