22 April 2024
Danel Turk, solutions portfolio manager, data centres, ABB
2024 is bringing a lot of growth in data centres, and with it, growth in energy demand. So important is this factor that the power requirements are amongst the top deciding factors on where to build a data centre. Sustainability has a key role to play here, because the less power consumed, the better for everyone.
Predictive maintenance
Data centres must be reliable up to 99.99999%. Reliable equipment and measurements are key to this performance. It’s important to utilise every advancement that’s made, so machine learning (ML) or AI, for instance.
As such, the most important thing is that the operator must start measuring. Without measuring, it’s impossible to make educated decisions. It doesn't even matter how fancy the DCIM system is that you use on top, it doesn't help without measuring.
Predictive maintenance, supported by AI and ML, remains in the early phases. It's helping data centre operators to do maintenance on site, although not as much as predicted yet. The companies that are seeing the benefits have made agreements with vendors to deliver services before the equipment breaks down.
I don’t think this is a huge issue for newer data centres, but for older facilities, the equipment is getting closer to some kind of major fault as time passes by. Accordingly, I feel that predictive maintenance will be a bigger topic in the years to come, particularly as AI is coming into the picture, and so many data centre operators run multiple sites. With AI, operators can run the analysis on one site and see what is likely to happen at another in the near future. We can expect to see more of this type of predictive maintenance in the next 2-3 years.
Going green
If we look at where energy losses are occurring in the ecosystem today, it’s mainly from cooling. In fact, electrical and cooling together account for 65% of energy loss. As such, the biggest benefit for data centre operators right now is switching to efficient motors – if operators go from Tier 3 to Tier 5 motors, they can save almost 30% in efficiency.
I do believe that data centres will reach net zero one day. There are losses no matter what electrical system is used, but net zero can be achieved through renewables, with clean fuels.
In some places in America or Germany, they're trialling miniature nuclear power plants on site for the data centre, small modular reactors. This isn’t big news in the UK yet, but I think this time next year, it’ll be one of the hot topics. Some people consider nuclear as green energy – although I don’t think anyone wants a small nuclear plant, or a data centre for that matter, in their backyard! I’m not sure how well the market will respond, but there’s definitely potential.
