Power grid reliability affects data center development

Power grid reliability affects data center development

Today, the development of data centers and power supply have become a potential contradiction. Peter Kelly, an analyst at the research and analysis agency's North Bridge energy partner, recently released a new report that analyzes grid availability in the United States, Britain and Europe, as well as the increasing demand for power from more and more data centers around the world.

With the application of cloud computing, big data, and Internet of Things, data grows exponentially. However, the power grid infrastructure that provides power for many data centers is subject to aging features and needs to be transformed. Therefore, the company's chief information officer is facing the pressure of power supply availability and data interruption, and is facing the increasing pressure of Data Center Reliability, operating costs and renewable energy.

"CIOs strive to reduce data center operation costs and obtain reliable power supplies ." Peter Kelly commented, "the worst thing is that the power grids in many countries may not meet the strict reliability requirements. In many developed countries, the user's demand for electricity has exceeded the construction speed of the power grid infrastructure. Some EU member States, the UK, and the United States all face their own unique challenges. Nordic countries such as Iceland and Norway, as well as the situation in Quebec, Canada, are better ."

The main considerations outlined in the report include:

• Processing large datasets, extracting useful information, driving the continuous growth of data centers that can store and process data, and increasing the processing capacity of supercomputer data centers or high-performance computing (HPC. Therefore, more and more data analysis needs to be processed in real time (or near real-time). Especially in the industry, data will become useless without analysis and immediate action.

• As the number of data and the value of data processing rapidly increase over the next few years, data center downtime will be more expensive. This further strengthens the fact that the reliability of the power system of the data center will become an increasingly important factor in the consideration of data center site selection.

• The increasing efficiency of data centers is difficult to meet the needs of data storage, data analysis, and information processing. To keep up with the times, the overall energy usage of data centers will increase. Data Centers have become one of the fastest growing users in the world. It is estimated that the total usage of data centers worldwide is 3% of the current total usage of the world, an increase of 100% compared with the past five years.

-It is estimated that only in the United States, the data center in 2013 used equivalent to the total power of approximately 34 500 megawatt power plants, or twice the total electricity consumption of New York city residents. This figure is expected to increase by 2020 in 60%.

-Globally, the total power of Internet data centers is between the national power consumption in Italy and Spain.

-According to a recent study, this growth will continue. In the next four years, IOT) and the power used by the Internet will be 7.5 times the current total power consumption of global data centers.

Data Centers are putting more pressure on vulnerable power systems. The answer to this question is not only "Is there enough power ?", But "Where is the power supply when our data center needs electricity ?"

When outsourcing data centers, the chief information officers should determine whether the power resources are sufficient as part of the decision-making process, followed by the reliability, scalability, and operating costs of the power supply.

• Power supply reliability is critical because the cost of power outages may be fatal. In different places, some power grids are more reliable than other power grids. Therefore, the reliability of the grid should be one of the main considerations when selecting the data center location.

• Not all power grids are the same.

-It is reported that the UK is currently developing in the future with limited power generation resources and flexibility;

-Germany's power supply is in a transitional period of regulatory uncertainty

-There is an increasingly fierce debate over the reliability of power infrastructure in some parts of the United States.

In contrast, Nordic countries (including Iceland) enjoy abundant renewable resources and reliable power grids. The situation in Quebec is similar to that in Canada. With a 20-year investment in a data center, the reliability of the power grid cannot be ignored.