Amazon plans to use Tesla batteries in its data center

Amazon has announced that Tesla batteries will be installed in a data center serving Amazon Web Services. We are talking about the Western region of the United States. In DC Amazon will install a Tesla battery system of 4.8 mW * h.

Earlier, Amazon announced its intention to switch to 100% provision of energy from renewable sources, including solar energy, wind and other types of green energy. Using Tesla batteries is part of the overall plan for this project.

The Tesla system is based on the batteries used in Tesla electric cars. In this case, the battery system includes the batteries themselves, an electronic control system, a temperature control system and other subsystems. Recall that such a system (for enterprises) is called Powerpack. This system can be scaled, and work even in a large enterprise. So, 100 kW units can be combined into a system from 500 kW to 10 MW and above ...

According to one of the leaders of AWS, batteries are not the only element that is necessary for the reliable operation of the green data center. However, the high capacity of such a system allows you to store substantial amounts of energy received from the sun, wind and other sources. At the same time, in the dark (if solar panels are used), the stored energy can be used without problems, supplying the equipment with electricity.



Amazon developers worked closely with the Tesla engineering team over the course of the year to get a system suitable for installation in their data center. In addition, the developers have created a number of necessary software for managing such a system in the DC.

The batteries, according to the plan, will be installed even before the data center switches to 100% "green" energy. The fact is that Tesla battery systems allow you to accumulate energy at a time when kW is the most inexpensive, so that in the "expensive" time to use the stored electricity. In addition, the batteries will help the company get rid of possible problems during peak energy consumption.

By the way, not so long ago, Amazon opened a "cloud" DC in Frankfurt, Germany. This data center, according to the authors of the project, does not affect the increase in carbon dioxide emissions into the environment. One can argue with this, but the developers tried to do everything possible to achieve zero contribution of DC to the CO2 emissions in the region.

In April, the company joined the American Renewable Energy Council, and also announced its participation in the US PREF (US Partnership for Renewable Energy Finance), to facilitate collaboration with local authorities on renewable energy for cloud providers.



Amazon claims that in its “cloudy” DCs, the company's equipment (optimized in a special way) consumes about 1/8 of the energy that is consumed by similar data-processing equipment of ordinary data centers (blade servers, etc.). In January, Amazon teamed up with Pattern Development to participate in a project to build a 150mW wind farm in Indiana. This object is called Amazon Wind Farm (Fowler Ridge). From January 2016, this station will begin to produce 500,000 MWh of energy. In this case, Tesla batteries can be used as efficiently as possible, guaranteeing the accumulation of energy when there is an excess of it, and return when the station is not working at full capacity.

Soon, these batteries can be used at other Amazon sites.