Hitachi Vantara has put one of the largest operational phase change material (PCM) cooling installations into service at its data centre in Zaltbommel, the Netherlands, using technology from Dutch thermal energy specialist Duraflow. The company says the system delivers 240kW of cooling while drawing only a few kilowatts of electricity, freeing grid capacity for computing.
What was announced
The deployment was announced on 27 October 2026 by Hitachi Vantara, the storage and infrastructure subsidiary of Japan’s Hitachi Ltd, and Duraflow. It consists of two PCM units, each rated at 120kW, installed at Hitachi Vantara’s Dutch facility.
Phase change materials absorb heat as they change state – typically from solid to liquid – and release it later. In this application the material takes up thermal load during peaks and gives it back in a controlled way when demand eases, rather than relying on compressors running continuously, as in conventional refrigeration-based cooling.
Simon Ninan, senior vice-president of business strategy at Hitachi Vantara, said the aim was to make more of the site’s “existing electrical capacity available for computing”.
The key numbers
- 240kW of total cooling capacity from two 120kW PCM units.
- 5–8kW of electricity drawn by the two units, according to operational monitoring data cited by the companies.
- 60–80kW: the companies’ estimate of compressor power a conventional direct expansion (DX) system would need for the same 240kW load.
- Up to 90% lower electricity use for thermal management, depending on the application, and no water consumed for cooling – both company claims.
The announcement did not disclose the cost of the installation, the total size of the Zaltbommel facility or when the units were commissioned. The performance figures have not been independently verified.
Context: power, not space, is the constraint
The companies framed the project as a response to grid scarcity. Citing Eaton, the release says heat management can account for up to 40% of a data centre’s total energy needs. Every kilowatt not spent on cooling can, in principle, be reallocated to IT load within an existing grid connection.
That matters in the Netherlands, where grid congestion has become a well-documented barrier for new connections in several provinces, and across much of Europe, where operators face multi-year waits for additional capacity. Thermal storage is one of several approaches being tested alongside liquid cooling, heat reuse and on-site batteries to stretch the power that sites already have.
Why it matters for modular and edge in Europe
A 240kW installation is small by hyperscale standards but sits squarely in the range of edge sites, enterprise server rooms and containerised or prefabricated modules. These deployments are typically limited by a fixed grid connection rather than floor space, so cooling overhead directly caps how much compute they can host.
If PCM units can reliably cut cooling power at this scale, they could allow modular operators to fit more IT load into existing connections and reduce dependence on water at sites where it is scarce or contested. Key questions for buyers will be how the systems perform through sustained high-density AI loads, warm summers and long periods without demand troughs to discharge stored heat, as well as how readily the units can be packaged into factory-built modules.
Further operating data from Zaltbommel would help establish whether the technology is a niche efficiency gain or a practical tool for grid-constrained edge capacity in Europe.
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