Energy saving becomes the primary benchmark for 3G power supply

With the advent of the 3G era, the telecommunications industry has put forward higher requirements for the construction of large-scale communication networks and broadband networks. The construction of 3G networks and the introduction of new value-added services have had a great impact on the power supply market. Hu Xiaodong, Sales Director of Eaton, told the reporter of "Communication Industry News" (online) that according to the share of communication power supply in the total investment in network construction in the past, in 2009, domestic operators invested 170 billion yuan in the construction of 3G networks, which will bring 1 billion yuan of domestic market to UPS, accounting for 30% of the overall domestic UPS market.

Driving the growth of the overall power supply market

Telecom restructuring and the issuance of 3G licenses have brought huge business opportunities to many equipment manufacturers. Xie Weigang, marketing director of Schneider's APC Greater China, said that in the next three years, China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom will invest at least 100 billion yuan to develop three 3G networks respectively. Communication power supply is the basic equipment and security equipment of information network, known as the "heart" of communication network. It is estimated that nearly 350,000 base stations will be built in the overall construction of 3G. According to the usual usage of one set of communication power supply for one new base station, if the replacement of the original power supply by the new operator is taken into account, the demand for communication power supply during the 3G construction period will be at least 350,000 sets.

3G has promoted the development of all businesses. The full business that is most promising for 3G profits requires the support of a large number of data centers, and data centers are also the main battlefield of UPS.

According to a research report by CCID Consulting, a total of 1.553 million UPS products were sold in China in 2008, a year-on-year growth rate of 8.9%, and sales revenue was 3.04 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 7.8%. The growth of the UPS market is still mainly driven by the demand for large orders from industries such as banks, securities, telecommunications, and governments.

Operators have been increasing their efforts to support the construction of large IDC rooms. CCID Consulting's "China IDC Business Market Research Annual Report" pointed out that telecom operators attach more importance to IDC than ever before. Survey data shows that several major operators currently occupy more than 60% of the IDC market. In particular, China Telecom and China Unicom, whose data center businesses have occupied more than 50% of the overall data center market.

Under the catalysis of the whole business, 3G personal mobile services have increased the demand for personal data storage on servers, such as mobile office and real-time uploading of photos to servers, which has also indirectly increased the demand for UPS by operators.

Green is the development focus of 3G power supply

Although my country is currently in a period of vigorous industrial development, the energy consumption of the information industry is relatively less than that of the industry, but with the further development of informatization, the energy consumption of informatization will show geometric growth. According to data, in 2007, the total energy consumption of servers in China was 13.68 billion yuan, which is equivalent to the annual power generation of Gezhouba Dam.

Currently, telecom operators at home and abroad have already taken action. British Telecom, as a long-established fixed-line operator, has begun to implement a carbon dioxide reduction plan, while China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom have also organized energy-saving and emission-reduction working groups to focus on studying the application of energy-saving products and formulating energy-saving policies.

Compared with communication equipment, many operators have gradually adopted energy-saving supporting products because supporting equipment has relatively low investment cost and its impact on the safe operation and maintenance of the computer room is not as serious as that of the main equipment.

Several major power supply manufacturers have also launched UPS products with environmentally friendly production processes and more energy-saving. Hu Xiaodong said that the application of 3G to high-power products can best reflect its energy-saving advantages. If a redundant double-bus power supply mechanism is used in a machine room with a load of 1,000 kilowatts, using a 1,200KVA UPS product instead of a 400KVA product will save 6 million yuan in the 10-year life cycle of the UPS product.

Hou Fuping, director of the Power Maintenance Technical Support Center of China Telecom Group Corporation, once said in a public forum that energy conservation in computer rooms should not only focus on the effectiveness and safety of products, but also on systematization. Energy conservation requires comprehensive consideration and systematic work.

With this guiding idea, many manufacturers have made great efforts on the power supply shared by all devices. For example, the highly intelligent power management solution launched by Raritan in the United States can detect the power consumption of equipment in the computer room in real time to avoid unnecessary energy consumption. For example, there is a time difference between the cooling of the air conditioner in the computer room and the temperature of the computer room. It is often necessary to open the air conditioner for a long time to ensure that the equipment reaches the working temperature. After using the highly intelligent power PDU, the equipment in the computer room can be linked with the power supply. When the equipment reaches the normal working temperature, the air conditioner power supply is immediately cut off to prevent the air conditioner from doing useless work. For the computer room, this function alone can save a lot of energy.

Produce refined management services

To save energy in a computer room, we must first know who the culprit of energy consumption is. For operation and maintenance personnel, knowing that air conditioning and main equipment each account for half of the energy consumption is far from enough to meet the needs of energy saving in the computer room. Due to the differences in the external environment and the equipment inside the computer room, even if the most energy-saving equipment on the market is used, it will not build the most energy-saving computer room.

There are many factors that affect the energy consumption of computer rooms, not just air conditioning and major equipment. Various complex reasons, such as sudden power outages and seasonal changes, can cause drastic changes in the energy consumption of computer rooms.

Chris McPherson, vice president of sales and marketing for Asia Pacific and Japan at Raritan, said that refined management services for computer rooms are becoming increasingly important for energy conservation in computer rooms. "Only by knowing the real factors that consume energy in a computer room can we adapt to local conditions, take effective measures, and make real-time improvements," he said.

Xie Weigang said that APC fully improves the efficiency of data centers and eliminates energy waste by applying the "4C" concept, thereby achieving energy conservation and improving availability to help telecom operators achieve the goal of sustained business growth. The so-called "4C" includes the following four aspects: cooling close to the heat source, hot air containment, capacity change management, and application of reasonably planned components, so that enterprises no longer have to waste a lot of electricity by using traditional over-planned systems .

Since the layout of the computer room is closely related to the level of operation and maintenance personnel, many power supply providers, like many large equipment manufacturers, have also begun to provide various soft services. For example, large companies such as Emerson and APC have taken advantage of their experience in computer room construction and started to provide operators with consulting, deployment, supervision and other services.

The arrival of 3G not only brings a huge market to main equipment manufacturers, but also provides development opportunities for supporting manufacturers. In the context of the global financial crisis and the sharp decline in various demands, it has strongly supported the technology and market development of supporting manufacturers.