Bad news for manufacturers of diesel generator sets and UPS



    A year ago, information appeared: in the US state of Arizona, construction began on a generatorless data center. The project involved engineers from the local energy company Salt River Project (SRP) and specialists from BaseLayer, which designs and manufactures modular container data centers.Standard quick-assembly modules manufactured using resource-saving principles that provide a high level of reliability, safety and efficiency.



    SRP announced that it would place data center modules outdoors near its energy infrastructure facilities, thus giving them direct access to the power system.



    And at the beginning of September this year, the unique SPR Datastation DC was put into operation. Such a data center is able to reliably service loads without the use of a diesel generator or other backup power source. It consists of BaseLayer modules and is powered by two networks, a standard power line and a high voltage line (230 kV). The probability of the data center going offline due to interruptions in power supply tends to zero, since the main power channel leads to a nearby site with generating capacities, and an auxiliary power line connects the data center to another power plant.



    This approach minimizes the cost of building power lines, requires less time to increase the power of DC. Instead of starting long construction work on the construction of new or expansion of old facilities, organizations that require increased power will be able to get it quickly and in the required quantity. The refusal from the DGU, UPS and the placement of the DC closer to the power source will reduce the complexity of the infrastructure, and, consequently, save on capital and operating costs. The company promises reliability at the level of "seven nines" - 99.99999%.



    William Slessman, CEO of BaseLayer:
    We discussed a joint agreement with SRP on the development of data centers and increasing their speed and efficiency. Knowing that the company's modular data centers are completely mobile and can be deployed literally anywhere, we decided to put them closer to the source of energy. In this project, we implemented our ideas, trying to show that this is possible.

    Another advantage of this concept is the ability to minimize losses in the transmission of electricity between generating capacities and the serviced load.
    SPR plans to actively develop this project and deploy modular data centers of the Datastation class near existing power plants, using power lines leading from other generating capacities as backup power sources. The company's management will continue to cooperate with BaseLayer, the products of this vendor in conjunction with an advanced energy supply concept make it possible to reduce electricity consumption by 19% compared to a traditional data center with a raised floor.

    - When you are faced with the fact that DCs are estimated to account for 2% of all energy consumption in the US, and soon the percentage is likely to increase ten times, then, as a generating company, you cannot ignore this fact, Clint Poole notes. Managing Director of SRP Telecom. “This project will help lay the foundation for the future, given the possibility of such growth, and will ensure that computing loads are placed at the appropriate point in the power system, at the level of power transmission.”

    If the prototype will work without failures, it is logical that its analogues will be built in the USA in the near future, and this is pretty unpleasant news for manufacturers of diesel generator sets and UPS.
    But, let's not rush time and write off the same UPS. After all, technologies for the development of uninterruptible power supplies also do not stand still. Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors intends to supply data center operators with its advanced Li-ion batteries.
    The Gigafactory Battery Factory is an important part of Tesla Motors' plan to help increase the volume of electric cars sold and lower their cost. The plant should be built by 2017.




    Amazon's first customer should be Amazon. The e-commerce giant is going to equip one of its data centers used to service the Amazon Web Services cloud platform with a Tesla Motors battery-powered UPS system.
    There is still good news from the Australian consulting company AECOM: by 2020, prices for Li-ion batteries will be 60% less, that is, from $ 500 per kW / h to $ 200 per kW / h. Such advanced UPSs to date, based on Li-ion batteries in their data centers, technology giants such as Microsoft and Facebook have successfully implemented. But for owners of data centers of low and medium power, such costs are now prohibitive. If the AECOM forecast comes true, advanced UPSs that are significantly superior to traditional lead-acid analogues will find wide application in the data center industry. Rechargeable Li-ion batteries have many advantages: high energy density with small dimensions, they are more environmentally friendly. They are also easy to maintain and have a long service life.


    For example, 6 kW Li-ion batteries fit easily into a 2U container in the server room, and uninterruptible power supplies on Li-ion batteries last up to seven years without maintenance. But again, you can’t say that everything is so smooth: the world’s reserves of lithium are not infinite. Explored reserves amount to 39 million tons, and only a third of them are suitable for economically viable production. Stocks are unevenly distributed throughout the world. About half of all land reserves are in Chile, the rest - in China and Argentina, a little in Portugal, Brazil and Zimbabwe.



    Video - SRP DataStation project information

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