Meeting/Event Information

Fred Rebarber, President, Norman S. Wright, Precision Environmental and Power (NSW PEP)

In his role as President of NSW PEP, Fred leads the team responsible for Data Center Solutions (Power, Cooling, and Channel Products) for Northern California, Northern Nevada, Hawaii and Guam. Prior to NSW PEP, Fred was with Vertiv for 17 years. As Senior Technical Director, Thermal Solutions, Fred served as the corporate technical interface for large end-users and consulting engineers who specialized in mission critical thermal designs. A key function of that role was to provide input on product development based on customer needs and market demands. Prior to that, in the OEM group, Fred worked with OEMs and end-users to gain adoption of existing Liebert Products as well as create specifications for new products. Before his OEM role, Fred was Director of Sales and Marketing for Cooligy. Cooligy designed and manufactured chip level liquid cooling solutions for OEMs. Fred has served on several industry groups; The Green Grid, Open Compute Project and Open19 (now Sustainable & Scalable Infrastructure Alliance (SSIA)). Fred holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.

The data center industry is faced with unprecedented demand due to the growth in high density data centers. Generative Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Internet of Things are revolutionizing the landscape, leading data center designers to utilize liquid-cooled equipment within air-cooled data centers. We will discuss types of liquid cooling, implementation examples and some of the challenges in deployments. Some key topics covered:

1. When do you transition from ‘Air’ to “Liquid” cooling? 
2. How are “Legacy” data centers impacted by higher densities? 
3. Open Compute Project / Open 19 Standards supporting liquid cooling deployments at scale.

As the industry adapts to meet new demands, other pressing challenges arise—compliance with Title 24 code and the evolving refrigerant regulations. We will explore code requirements and upcoming regulations:

1. Current status on the transition to low GWP refrigerants. 
2. What impact does Low GWP refrigerants have on manufacturers?