The explosion of data being trafficked and stored by consumers and businesses is creating the need for more data center capacity. This leads to greater power demands to drive those datacenters.
In the U.K., for instance, datacenters consume about 6.4 GW, which is enough energy to power 6 million homes. This, according to James Cooper, a product manager at industrial fan firm emb-papst, is leading to higher density servers. These are more power hungry and run hotter.
This makes the design of fans very important. Cooper, writing at DatacenterDynamics, advocates the replacement of legacy computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units and AC-driven chillers with electronically commutated (EC) fans. The advantages of this approach are to combine DC and AC power and simple speed controls.
Earlier this month, Energy Manager Today reported on the opening of the AliCloud Qiandao Lake Data Center. The AliCloud facility uses Qiandao Lake in the Zhejian Province of China for cooling.
