Server Farms and Data Centers Reduce Enegy Inefficiencies, Excess Heat, Unecessary Parts- Berkeley, CA
Situation
Berkeley, CA Data centers are the backbone of the Information Age, providing data storage for websites and databases, and supporting virtually every larger-sized private corporation and institution. Computer power supplies are not very efficient. In many cases they have been designed for low upfront cost rather than long-term high efficiency. The most significant problems are increased electrical usage and increased heat. Heat created by these inefficiencies requires air conditioning as well as spacing and processing power considerations.
Data centers can use 100 times more electricity than a typical office building (on a square foot basis), so energy costs are a major concern.
With financial support from the California Energy Commission, researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) teamed with Silicon Valley giants including Sun, Intel, Cisco, and many other industry partners, to demonstrate technologies that have the potential to reduce the operating cost of data centers by billions of dollars a year, while maintaining or even improving reliability, lengthening the life of servers, and saving energy.
Solution
Increased energy efficiency is achieved by eliminating multiple AC and DC conversion steps in traditional data centers.
The Old Way
Traditional Solar Systems convert the DC power generated by the panels into Alternating Current so that it can be passed through an AC grid but is then converted back into DC at a rectifier before it can be used at its destination. Power from the grid must also be run through a rectifier at each and every destination before it can be used.
Solar Panels > Inverter > Rectifier in the Computer Power Supply > Computer
AC Grid >Rectifier in the Computer Power Supply > Computer
The Nextek Way
With Nextek’s power systems, DC solar power is passed through a DC micro-grid directly to its destination, without the need for any conversion. Power from the AC grid is converted at a single rectifier in the Gateway (instead of a rectifier at each destination device) before being passed into the DC micro-grid. This system uses all available power from the cheapest source first, before supplementing from the grid.
Solar Panels > Computer
AC Grid > Rectifier in the Gateway > Computer
With this configuration, Solar power from the photovoltaic panels passes through our gateway directly to the 380VDC bus of the datacenter, nearing 100% efficiency.
Additionally, because traditional solar systems put AC power into the grid, they are subject to "Anti-Islanding" laws, which require that all solar systems shut down instantly in the event of a grid failure, to avoid putting the line workers who are working on the grid in danger.
Because Nextek Technology focuses on generating DC, it is not subject to Anti-Islanding laws. This means that the DC powered equipment stays on during a daytime power failure without relying on the battery backup. Battery life is extended and the length of time that the system remains online is extended indefinitely.
Savings
- By distributing DC throughout the data center instead of AC from the electricity grid, electrical power losses are reduced.
- Fewer parts are required to convert energy.
- DC distribution reduces facility cooling needs by limiting the number of converters (wasted energy become heat) and increases available floorspace and overall system reliability.
- The seamless integration of solar, wind and other renewable power sources as part of the new DC architecture at the site is an added benefit.
Interested in learning more about Nextek's power solutions?
