People constantly generate an enormous amount of data on the web that, in one way or another, companies must store and manage securely. To give you an idea, it is estimated that today’s iPhone has more computing power than NASA had when man landed on the moon, and in 2018 the amount of data created worldwide reached 33 zetabytes (one zetabyte equals one billion terabytes).
The importance of generator sets for data centers
Many companies today depend on their ability to store and manage data, to the extent that a failure in the flow or security of data can be critical and result in large financial losses, as well as a loss of customer confidence. For this reason, companies such as large e-commerce, financial institutions, or public entities, to give just a few examples, entrust their data to a Data Centre, or Data Processing Centre (DPC), whether external or in-house.
It is therefore essential for a data center to guarantee the storage, security, and constant availability of data, so they cannot risk a power failure. For this reason, these centers always have generators that guarantee a constant supply of electricity both for data processing and for the cooling systems, as the Data Centre rooms must be at a constant temperature of around 20º and have adequate ventilation to ensure the optimal functioning of the servers.
At Electra Molins we help data centers to correctly dimension the auxiliary power needs, taking into account the criticality of the data being processed, the facilities and, above all, the defined parameters of the energy infrastructure for Data Centers (Data Center Power). Here are some practical cases in which solutions adapted to the particular conditions of each installation had to be found:
Installation of three generator sets for a data center in the telecommunications sector.
In this case, we installed three 1,400kVA generators operating in parallel with each other and with bidirectional zero-crossing switching in configuration (n+1). Each generator has a double output circuit breaker to supply each of the busbars that feed the two branches. This Data Center is certified as a Tier III Facility, and is located in the province of Barcelona.
Installation of two generator sets for a Data Centre (banking sector)
The banking sector not only manages a large amount of data, but it is also critical in terms of security and availability. In this Data Centre located in Temara, Morocco, two 750 kVA generator sets were installed, one for each power busbar. Tanks and automatic refueling systems were also supplied to ensure an uninterrupted supply of more than 24 hours at full power.
Data Centre for a modular data centre
In this case, the 780 kVA generators were custom-designed. The project included, inside the soundproofed roof, the Network-Group switching and the power supply panel for the different loads, which simplifies the power distribution infrastructures in the installation as much as possible. This Data Centre is located in the community of Madrid.
In short, the power supply is critical for Data Centres, so it is very important to define the project and the needs correctly from the beginning, trusting the experts in each specialty.