EUDCA releases new white
paper: Battery Opportunities
for Data Centres
T
he European Data Centre
Association (EUDCA) has
announced the publication of a new
white paper entitled Battery Opportunities
for Data Centres.
Authored on behalf of the EUDCA Technical
Committee by Gareth Williams, Director at
Arup, the new whitepaper discusses the
impact of lithium-ion batteries on the data
centre space together with the potential
benefits of which data centre operators
might avail themselves.
While Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)
vendors and customers have traditionally
specified lead acid (VRLA) batteries in
power back-up solutions, recent reductions
in the capital costs of lithium-ion solutions
have made them competitive with the
older technology, offering a payback period
of less than five years when the operational
cost savings are considered.
The author says that within the US market,
the capital cost differential has reduced
even further with some UPS vendors now
able to offer their larger clients lithium-ion
battery solutions for the same price as
VRLA-based solutions.
increased capacity allows the operator to
move the batteries further upstream and
protect even more of the site. The wider
acceptable environmental range means
the batteries could be relocated into the
data hall and installed at PDU, row or
even individual rack level. Locating the
batteries this much closer to the IT load
creates a range of further opportunities. be diverted or reserved to meet the
demands of specific applications, racks
or rows; power allocation based upon
priority level of the application during
failure scenarios; and deploying multiple
Service Level Agreements (SLAs) within
the same data hall.
Software defined power In summary, Gareth Williams states that
lithium-ion batteries make it possible for
data centre operators to develop a range
of alternative distribution topologies,
increase available white space, reduce or
eliminate the need for dedicated cooling
for batteries.
Rack level battery capacity enabled by
lithium-ion technology is also an enabler
for software defined power. Example
use cases include allowing power to
LITHIUM-ION
PRESENTS A
NUMBER OF
ADVANTAGES
TO THE DATA
CENTRE
DESIGNER.
Lithium-ion – saint or sinner?
The smaller footprint and increased
cycle-life options provide the potential to
generate additional income through the
provision of grid support services and
relocating batteries downstream creates
alternative opportunities for data hall
level distribution.
To obtain a copy of Battery Opportunities
for Data Centres, email alex.rabbetts@
eudca.org with the white paper title in the
subject line. ◊
The opportunities for data centres
i
From reduced footprint to increased
environmental range and lifecycle, lithium-
ion presents a number of advantages to
the data centre designer such as increasing
autonomy, load or white space; providing
alternatives for the battery location and
environment; or allowing the batteries to
be considered for a range of functions that
would not previously have been considered
acceptable with VRLA type batteries,
including demand side response.
Alternative electrical
distribution topologies
Making use of the reduced footprint
associated with lithium-ion to install an
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Issue 05
55