State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power puts into operation a "multi-station-in-one" all-DC prefabricated data center

Neatly arranged cabinets, colorful cables, and soft rhythmic sounds, everything in the "multi-station-in-one" all-DC prefabricated data center meets the characteristics of a modern "data warehouse". A month ago, this data center was put into operation in the regional energy internet demonstration zone of State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power Co., Ltd. in Tongli, Suzhou.

Data hubs have multiple roles

The "multi-station-in-one" all-DC prefabricated data center is the data "collection pool" of Jiangsu's comprehensive energy service platform, where all types of energy data in the province will be collected. In addition to the internal data of the power system, the center will also collect external data such as macroeconomics and meteorology, customer-side equipment energy consumption data, and energy data such as park-level special subsystems, social energy efficiency service provider systems, and government platforms at all levels to form a data cloud, realize unified management of comprehensive energy data in the province, and unified services for comprehensive energy customers, and then form a comprehensive energy efficiency evaluation system application of "equipment-user-industry-region". At present, the comprehensive energy data of five regions in the province have been synchronized to the data center.

As a key project in the regional energy internet demonstration zone, building a "multi-station integration" energy system is another bold exploration by State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power to promote the in-depth implementation of energy transformation. In the demonstration zone, the data center, together with energy routers, green charging and swapping stations, prefabricated warehouse-type energy storage, and various new energy sites such as photovoltaic, solar thermal, and wind power, form a new energy "micro-ecosystem". Surrounding the data center, the park provides four ports of AC 10 kV, 380 V and DC 750 V, 375 V, forming a source-grid-load AC/DC free exchange system, realizing the flexible access of distributed renewable energy, electric vehicles, energy storage, power loads and other elements, and interconnecting with multiple microgrids to form an energy micro "overpass" with highly interconnected information and energy.

"The data center requires 200 kilowatts for normal operation, and is a stable 'large electricity consumer' in the park, which also verifies the reliability of this new energy system." Zheng Haiyan, deputy chief engineer of Jiangsu Fangtian Electric Power Technology Co., Ltd., who is responsible for the project development, said that the scale of various data centers has increased dramatically, and the power density requirements have been continuously improved. The traditional power supply system can no longer meet the load demand. New energy sources such as photovoltaic, solar thermal, and wind power, as well as prefabricated warehouse-type energy storage devices in the demonstration area provide a more stable power supply and reduce the capital investment in uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) and batteries for data center construction.

"Grid power supply and new energy power supply form parallel backup. Our trial operation has verified that this is a feasible option. Our data center has even cancelled UPS." Zheng Haiyan said that now buildings and roofs have become energy "production sites", and future data centers can obtain new energy nearby, and even "turn it into a regular" source.

All-DC "nest-building and phoenix-attracting"

"All new energy power generation is DC output. The combination of DC power supply concept of data center and new energy DC technology will be an opportunity to release energy data energy and build a new form of energy structure." Chen Zhigang, deputy general manager of Jiangsu Fangtian Electric Power Technology Co., Ltd., introduced that compared with AC power supply, the transmission and conversion loss of DC power supply can be reduced by about 10%, "especially it can solve the problem of AC-DC conversion of new energy power generation, which is more economical for large electricity users such as data centers."

The innovative ideas for data center construction have attracted the attention of the industry, and many equipment manufacturers have "tested the waters" to verify all-DC products. Gree Air Conditioning has specially developed a high-precision DC outdoor air conditioning unit for the data center, which uses DC750 DC direct drive technology for power supply and uses air-cooled cold water technology to provide a cold source for the air conditioning indoor unit system.

"We are optimistic about the broad prospects of DC technology. This is also an opportunity for us to keep up with the development trend of energy transformation and actively seek industrial transformation." Huang Meng, assistant to the director of Zhuhai Gree New Energy and Environmental Technology Research Institute, said that the application of DC air conditioning in the data center field is the first time in China.

Other companies that have taken the lead include Shenghong Electric and Yimikang. The DC-DC power supply equipment developed by Shenghong Electric was put into use in the data center field for the first time, while Yimikang developed indoor DC air conditioning units in conjunction with Gree Air Conditioning.

"In the future, we will optimize the technical framework and application solutions for data centers based on the all-DC power supply mode, and look forward to promoting it on a larger scale." Chen Zhigang introduced that the data center currently chooses 750-volt DC power supply and is equipped with two types of IT servers, high-voltage 240-volt DC and low-voltage 48-volt DC. Further demonstration is being carried out for the optimization of DC technology for application in the data center platform.

Small size with big capacity

The all-DC prefabricated data center is located in a corner of Tongli Ancient Town. It is made of two standard containers prefabricated and "spliced" together. It is painted gray-blue and has a square shape. It is inconspicuous among the eye-catching solar thermal power generation, wind power generation and other equipment.

"Small size, large capacity, easy expansion, and flexible deployment are the layout features of this data center." Li Yefei, senior engineer of the Integrated Energy Service Center of Jiangsu Fangtian Electric Power Technology Co., Ltd., said that compared with traditional data centers deployed in buildings, the all-DC "multi-station-in-one" data center is "unremarkable in appearance", but it does not lack in data processing scale and capacity. It is designed in a modular manner, with power distribution, refrigeration, monitoring, fire protection and other systems and IT server equipment. It has set up a cloud platform with 130 two-way PC servers, with a total storage capacity of 1.8PB and access to a 40G high-speed network. At the same time, due to the widespread application of DC technology, the conversion links are reduced, the internal components of the equipment are also reduced, and the database hardware architecture can be more compact, and more equipment can be accommodated in the same space.

In addition, the modular and prefabricated design allows the data center to expand and upgrade exponentially in a short period of time, and can also be quickly transferred and redeployed according to actual applications. "It only took one and a half months from design to specific operating conditions." Li Yefei introduced that normal hoisting and debugging only take a few days, which is particularly suitable for large-scale new energy construction and other working conditions. Through the accumulation of prefabricated warehouse modules, unlimited expansion can be achieved in theory.