UNCOVERING THE LAYERS
David Skeans , VP of International Sales , Starline
wiring methods , which typically are conductors brought from a panel board to a server cabinet , is that it can be prepackaged , pre-designed and it has the flexibility to allow you to attach load to it at any point .
Then it has the consistency in the design to basically allow anybody to install it . You don ' t have to have a lot of electrical knowledge to install it , it ' s more like a mechanical installation . Then it ' s designed to be maintenance-free . So , operation is very simple as well – you put it in place and you don ' t really have to attend to it very often .
It ' s very similar in concept to track lighting . Track lighting is popular and convenient because you can move fixtures around where you need them . Track busbar has that same flexibility and ease of use , you can just simply attach load wherever you need it and you don ' t have to pre-plan where your cables are going to be landing .
What are some of the main benefits of using busbar systems in data centres and how does this approach offer operational advantages ?
There ' s a commercial benefit because we can work directly with the facility owner . We eliminate a lot of the people that may come in between the user and the manufacturer by working directly with the end-users , so commercially our offers are normally very attractive .
Then there ’ s the flexibility that allows you to basically buy a kit and where the engineering can be as simple as how many rows of cabinets do you have and how many cabinets per row , that reduces the amount of effort that ' s required for pre-planning and pre-engineering . And then when our product arrives because of the flexibility where you attach the power , you can simply just attach plug-in units to power cabinets wherever you need them .
Then there ’ s scalability . What most of our customers do is build a facility and then attempt to find customers to take up the lease space or to take up the colocation space that they have . As they find those customers , they can then add a portion of the electrical system that ' s needed to complete the power path , so they don ' t have to make the investment all on day one . They can scale their investment based on how sales are going .
How do these systems enable reliability , flexibility and safety and how do these factors contribute to effective power distribution in the data centre ?
Reliability is primarily dictated by manufacturing quality and design quality and then installation quality . The manufacturing quality is sustained to the highest international standards . We always test 100 % of our systems . We have computer testing for all of our plug-in units .
Essentially , when you purchase a busbar system , you ' re buying two different types of systems . You ’ re buying the busbar itself and then you ’ re buying what we call plug-in www . intelligentdatacentres . com
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