Per-Facility Analysis · Updated July 21, 2026

Miami Data Center: Generators Beneath the Chillers

A design-stage catch: generators sited directly beneath the chillers. Public-source inputs. Screening-level.

This facility is still under development. That makes this the right moment for a conversation. Resolved Analytics works with owners and developers at the conceptual and early design stage to find exterior recirculation risks while the layout is still adjustable. In Miami's climate, getting the exterior thermal picture right before construction is not optional. If you have a facility in permitting or early design in a hot and humid market, book a call now while the options are still open.

What This Page Covers

This page presents a screening-level exterior CFD analysis of a 16.8 MW data center under development in the Miami market, designed by a national MEP engineering firm with a dedicated mission-critical practice. The facility uses rooftop air-cooled chillers, with backup generators in a ground-level row along the west side of the building.

Because the facility is still in development, this is a design-stage read rather than a post-occupancy one, which is the kind of exterior recirculation question that is far cheaper to answer before the generators and chillers are set than after. And the layout raises exactly that question: the generator row sits directly beneath the west-side chillers.

Facility Context

The facts below are derived entirely from cited public sources including the operator's published specifications, press coverage, public facility databases, and aerial imagery. No proprietary drawings, specifications, or operational data are used.

Location: Florida

Owner-operator: A South Florida colocation operator. Facility under development.

Engineer of record: National MEP engineering firm with a dedicated mission-critical practice.

Critical IT capacity: 16.8 MW critical IT; 22 MW electrical service. N+1 redundancy.

Cooling: 36 rooftop air-cooled chillers, arranged in four rows of nine. Vertical discharge; intakes drawn through finned coils beneath the discharge.

Backup power: 10 diesel standby generators, in a single ground-level row along the west side, directly below the west chiller array. Stack exhaust.

Compliance: Design targets consistent with SOC / ISO / PCI / NIST mission-critical standards.

Scenario Presented

Wind and ambient.
Wind from the west (0° W) at 10 mph, 92°F ambient (near the Miami summer design condition). The westerly direction carries the west-side generator exhaust up into the chillers directly above it.

Operating scenario.
All generators and all rooftop chillers running at full load, with the on-generator condition at design ambient, maximizing exhaust source and heat-rejection demand together.

This page presents the westerly case. Additional wind directions were examined as part of the survey's directional screening and are available to the engineer of record on request.

What the Model Shows

The observations below are qualitative readings of the presented scenario. Quantitative outputs (per-unit intake temperatures, recirculation magnitudes) are shared with the engineer of record on request.

1. Generator exhaust is drawn straight into the chillers above it. With the generator row concentrated directly under the west-side chiller array, a westerly wind pushes exhaust heat up and directly into those chiller intakes, which is a short, direct recirculation path rather than a longer lofting trajectory. The west-side intakes run markedly hotter than the units downwind across the roof.

2. A pre-construction finding, not a retrofit problem. This facility is still under development. An exterior recirculation issue identified now is a design decision such as generator placement, stack height, chiller-array offset, rather than an operational constraint to live with. This is the point in a project's life where an exterior CFD read is worth the most.

3. Air-cooled cooling ties capacity to intake air. The rooftop chillers reject heat sensibly to ambient, so intake dry-bulb governs their capacity. In Miami's hot, humid summer, any exhaust recirculation that warms that intake air erodes capacity precisely during the peak-load season the design must hold through.

4. This is a placement question the geometry decides. Which chillers are affected, and how severely, follows from generator-row position, chiller-array layout, and building massing, which is an exterior-flow question that only a site-scale model resolves, and one that is still fully adjustable at this stage of design.

Methodology

The methodology applied here is the same standardized exterior CFD approach applied to every facility in the cohort: cylindrical far-field domain, logarithmic atmospheric boundary layer inlet, polyhedral mesh in Siemens STAR-CCM+, realizable k-ε RANS baseline. The presented case uses a 92°F ambient (near the Miami ASHRAE summer design condition; site elevation ~10 ft). Full domain setup, boundary conditions, solver choices, and stated limitations are documented at the Methodology page. Key terms used here are defined at the Key Terms and FAQ.

For the Engineer of Record

The full per-facility figure set, the complete wind-case matrix, and a quantitative summary are available on request. We share these directly with the named engineer of record, not with building owners, operators, or other parties. On a facility still in design, an exterior recirculation read is at its most actionable and the layout choices that set the exposure are still open. Contact stewart@resolvedanalytics.com and reference this Miami facility.

About the Author

Stewart Bible, Principal, Resolved Analytics. Resolved Analytics is a Computational Fluid Dynamics consulting practice and authorized Siemens STAR-CCM+ reseller, with a long-standing service line in mission-critical facility exterior analysis. Contact: stewart@resolvedanalytics.com.

Disclosure

This is independent research conducted by Resolved Analytics without engagement, sponsorship, or input from the building owner, operator, or engineer of record. All inputs are derived from cited public sources; no proprietary drawings, specifications, or operational data are used. Results represent idealized exterior conditions and do not represent the actual as-built performance of any facility. No claims are made regarding life-safety, code compliance, or operational performance. All firm and project references have been anonymized. This material is not engineering services rendered to any party.