1. Don’t start with the container — start with your goal.

Only by clearly understanding these answers can you make a smart choice between air, water, and immersion cooling — instead of just comparing price tags.

2. Logic of choosing a cooling system

The cooling system is not just a technical detail. It is a fundamental business decision that determines both your initial investment and the hourly operating cost of your entire mining farm.

Air cooling — lowest entry barrier, proven mechanics

An air-cooled container offers the lowest CAPEX among all three types. It uses fans, filters, and hot/cold aisle containment — no liquids, no complex automation.

Best suited for: Cold and temperate climates. In Siberia, the Urals, and Arctic regions, such containers can achieve a PUE of 1.003–1.005 — the best result among all cooling types, because cold outside air removes heat almost for free.

Limitations: Heat dissipation capacity is limited by airflow density. For equipment consuming 5+ kW per unit and high-density deployments, air becomes a bottleneck. While a single fan failure is possible, replacements are quick and inexpensive.

Hydro cooling — high density and long-term efficiency

Hydro cooling uses a coolant (water or propylene glycol) to remove heat directly from the equipment. CAPEX is higher than air cooling, as it requires pumps, manifolds, dry coolers, and closed loops.

Where it performs best: High-density deployments (168+ units in a 40-foot container at 1,900 kW load) and moderate to warm climates. A closed-loop system with no water evaporation and reliable Kelvion dry coolers ensures effective heat rejection in any weather.

Key advantage over air cooling: Fewer moving parts subject to wear. A redundant N+1 pump system is more fault-tolerant than a large array of fans. When properly designed, OPEX is lower due to fewer replacements and lower power consumption per unit of heat removed.

Immersion cooling — niche solution for specific use cases

Immersion cooling involves submerging miners in dielectric fluid. The equipment does not overheat physically, noise levels are minimal, and ASIC lifespan is theoretically longer.

Reality: It offers average heat dissipation capacity but comes with higher operating costs compared to well-designed liquid cooling. The fluid is expensive, requires regular monitoring of its composition, and maintenance is more complex due to sealing requirements. PUE is typically higher than a properly engineered water-cooling system in cold climates.

When it makes sense: Extremely hot climates, non-standard hardware form factors, or when extreme silence and compactness are critical requirements.

3. CAPEX or OPEX: The key decision point

This is the most important and yet most rarely asked question when purchasing a mining container. Two miners with the same budget can come to completely different conclusions — depending on their planning horizon.

4. What Types of Containers Exist and What Pains They Solve

Containers are differentiated not only by cooling method, but also by climate design, size, and intended use case. Here’s the core breakdown:

5. What to сheck in the electrical system and infrastructure

Choosing the right cooling system is only 50% of the decision. The other half is the electrical infrastructure. Mistakes here are expensive and usually show up within the first few weeks of operation.

Key points to verify:

• Power calculation with 15–20% headroom. Sum up the consumption of all miners and add reserve for PDUs, cables, breakers, and the cooling system. A container with extra capacity is always better than an overloaded main distribution board.

• Properly configured Main Distribution Board (MDB). Check the rating of the main breaker, the number and ratings of outgoing lines, and the presence of SPD (Surge Protection Devices). The absence of SPD is a common cause of equipment failure during thunderstorms.

• PDUs with individual protection per outlet. Each port should have its own circuit breaker. This ensures that a failure of one miner doesn’t take down the entire row. Hot-swappable breakers and outlets without shutting down the system is not a nice-to-have — it’s a necessity for industrial mining.

• Balanced three-phase load. Uneven load across phases causes voltage imbalance and accelerates transformer wear. A quality PDU balances the load automatically.

• N+1 redundancy for cooling. If one or two fans or a single pump fails, the system must continue operating normally. This is not just a spec sheet number — it’s real protection against downtime.

About MTTR (Mean Time To Repair)

Every hour of downtime costs money. At 2 MW load, one hour of downtime can mean tens of thousands of dollars in lost profit. A complete spare parts kit (ZIP) included with the container isn’t marketing — it’s insurance that pays for itself at the first failure.

6. Conclusion: decision-making algorithm

Let’s put it all together into one clear sequence:

Key principle

The right container is neither the cheapest nor the most expensive. It’s the one whose cost structure perfectly matches your business model.

A cheap entry with high OPEX in a hot climate will cost you more after one year than a well-designed liquid cooling solution from day one.