State Grid Shanghai Electric Power explores edge computing data station construction and commercial operation

On December 26, 2019, the Shanghai 110 kV Xuzhen substation multi-station integration project was officially put into operation, marking that the State Grid Shanghai Electric Power Company has fully completed the 10 multi-station integration leading pilot tasks in 2019.

At the beginning of 2019, State Grid Corporation of China launched the construction of ubiquitous power Internet of Things, launching a total of 57 construction tasks. Among them, the "multi-station integrated development" task was led by State Grid Shanghai Electric Power, with a total of 18 provincial power companies and 4 professional units participating in the pilot construction. From the perspective of actual application needs, State Grid Shanghai Electric Power used innovation to find a way out, sought development through integration, took edge computing data stations as the pilot direction, actively explored the activation of idle space in substations, and made useful explorations to open up the road to edge computing data station construction and commercial operation.

Seize the development opportunities

Edge computing data station layout is meticulous

Data centers are nothing new in Shanghai. However, most of Shanghai's traditional large data center projects are located outside the outer ring road, far away from the city center. Compared with these huge buildings with thousands of cabinets, will there be a market for small data centers with a few or dozens of cabinets based on the redundant space of substations?

"What we value is the advantage of edge computing data stations being close to potential users, which happens to be a blank area that is currently beyond the reach of large data centers," said Tang Yuezhong, deputy chief engineer and director of the Internet Department of State Grid Shanghai Electric Power.

The preliminary research results of State Grid Shanghai Electric Power show that with the upgrading of Shanghai's urban industrial form, a large number of users in fields such as finance and trade, artificial intelligence, pharmaceutical research and development, and media and broadcasting are increasingly demanding data centers. In particular, with the vigorous development of artificial intelligence and the increasing maturity and popularity of 5G technology, edge computing has become a new choice for many companies to break through the current technical bottleneck. On the one hand, these potential users do not have a large demand for cabinets and are not the main service objects of large data centers; on the other hand, they have high requirements for response speed and hope that the distance between storage and computing resources is as close as possible, so as to truly give play to the effectiveness of edge computing. In addition, with the scale of ubiquitous power Internet of Things construction in the future, the demand for data collection and processing will increase exponentially. Edge computing data stations can effectively reduce the load pressure of communication transmission and main station reception and optimize data quality.

In May 2019, the construction of the 35kV Yinjiagang Station, Shanghai's first multi-station fusion station, began. "We have carefully considered and conducted market research to choose it as our first multi-station fusion station." He Weiguo, chief engineer of Pudong Power Supply Company, who is responsible for the specific construction of this station, believes that one of the major advantages of Yinjiagang Station is that it is directly located in the heart of Zhangjiang Science City. "Zhangjiang Science City is the core bearing area for Shanghai to build a global science and innovation center. Yinjiagang Station can not only provide energy and power for this world-class science city, but also provide data services for it. This is the evolution of traditional substations in the context of the construction of ubiquitous power Internet of Things," he said.

Similar to Yinjiagang Station, substations of various voltage levels throughout Shanghai, especially in the central urban area where demand for data services is strong, will greatly assist in the subsequent construction of edge computing data station networks.

"In recent years, with the adoption of intensive equipment, a large number of old substations have been transformed to free up space, but they often become useless resources because they cannot find suitable channels for use." Zhou Hua, deputy director of the Internet Department of State Grid Shanghai Electric Power, said that during the pilot construction process, State Grid Shanghai Electric Power set its sights on these idle spaces. "The integration of multiple stations has found a way out for the idle space, which is really turning waste into treasure and achieving multiple goals at one stroke."

At present, 10 multi-station integration sites in Shanghai Power Grid have been "married" with substations of three voltage levels: 10 kV, 35 kV, and 110 kV, preliminarily demonstrating the feasibility of integrating edge computing data stations with traditional substations; and when selecting the sites, these sites fully consider the radiation coverage of core business districts such as Xujiahui and Wujiaochang, industrial parks such as Caohejing and Songjiang University Town, and transportation hubs such as Shanghai Railway Station. With the advancement of subsequent construction, the clever layout of edge computing data stations close to potential users will help small-scale data centers win the market through differentiated competition.

Win market recognition

Multi-station integration projects have broad prospects

With a reasonable layout and clear positioning, the State Grid Shanghai Electric Power Multi-station Integration Project naturally received market response. In December 2019, State Grid Shanghai Electric Power received its first order and signed a lease contract for 22 cabinets at the Yinjiagang edge computing data station with a company under Shanghai Media Group. At the same time, State Grid Shanghai Electric Power also deployed distributed cloud video services at the Yinjiagang station, piloting the "network + cloud + video" characteristic integration service, which can provide hotels and other services such as high-definition video on demand and nearby storage and processing of operator video information. In addition, three edge computing data stations have reached cooperation with State Grid Information and Communication Industry Group Co., Ltd. to carry out "networking + localization" collaborative operations.

The rapid market recognition is due to the service structure carefully planned and built by State Grid Shanghai Electric Power in the early stage. The company actively communicates with relevant departments such as the Shanghai Economic and Information Commission, the Pudong New Area Government, and communication operators such as China Mobile and China Unicom to carry out multi-station integration compliance and business model research. Based on existing technical capabilities, basic resources and talent reserves, State Grid Shanghai Electric Power has clarified the "Colo+Edge" distributed edge computing node multi-station integration development model, focusing on business expansion of cabinet leasing, cloud computing service models, and cloud-edge collaborative integrated solutions. At the same time, the company has formed mutually beneficial cooperation with all parties, and has successively joined hands with State Grid Information and Communication Industry Group and a well-known external high-performance data center operator to jointly create an ecological industry development model that adapts to the market.

Recently, the strategic cooperation agreement signed by State Grid Shanghai Electric Power and the Management Committee of the Lingang New Area of ​​Shanghai Free Trade Zone clearly stated that the two parties will jointly promote the comprehensive application of basic grid resources such as substations. The Management Committee of the New Area encourages and supports the company to use the space, power and communications of substations to build edge computing nodes and provide data information services to enterprises and society. In the subsequent construction of the Lingang New Area of ​​Shanghai Free Trade Zone, multi-station fusion sites will play multiple roles in traditional energy supply and new data services, and the "network + cloud + video" fusion business will also be implemented in the third and fourth phases of the Lingang public rental housing project.

Based on the 10 stations put into operation in 2019, State Grid Shanghai Electric has begun planning the layout of multi-station integration construction this year. Among them, the 220 kV Wanrong Station edge computing data station will serve as the core connection point of the region to enhance the overall computing power of the surrounding edge computing data stations. The company will also actively promote the integration of ubiquitous power Internet of Things construction with 5G and Beidou planning in subsequent layouts, promote standardization construction, and expand market influence.