Photo by IBM
IBM recently reported that it will be distributing its first solar-power array. It is designed specifically to run high-voltage data centers by integrating AC-and DC-based servers, water-cooled computing systems and additional related electronics.
The array covers more than 6,000 square-feet of rooftop over IBM’s India Software Lab in Bangalore and is capable of generating an average of five hours of electricity a day.
The company reported that this using this unique high-voltage DC power conditioning method and reducing AC-DC conversion losses allows a reduction in energy consumption for data centers by 10 percent.
The solution allows the possibility for companies to set up a data center that doesn’t need an electrical grid since the solution creates its own DC mini-gird inside the data center.
“This solar deployment, currently powering almost 20 percent of our own data center energy requirements, is the latest in the investments made at the India lab to design an efficient and smarter data center,” said Dr. Ponani Gopalakrishnan, vice president, IBM India Software Lab.
“Ready access to renewable energy in emerging markets presents significant opportunities for IBM to increase efficiencies, improve productivity and drive innovation for businesses around the world,” Gopalakrishnan added.
The plan is to have the Bangalore solar-power system to connect directly into the data center’s water-cooling and high-voltage DC systems, which would provide a compute power of 25 to 30 teraflops using an IBM Power Systems server on a 50kW solar power supply.
