Electrical distribution for a reliable data center

Abstract

For the reliability of data centers the electrical distribution architecture has a vital impact on performances throughout its lifecycle. Special standards establish tier classifications for the site infrastructures. In a data center with two supplying systems, two UPS systems and dual-corded equipment, the switchboard design of supplied by each UPS needs to plan periodic maintenances without loss service continuity, the loads balancing, the future expansion and rehabilitation of the distribution (road map). The protection must be coordinated for the selectivity of the fault on the final circuits to ensure service continuity of the whole system. Equipment like electronic components are characterized by an excessive inrush current at start up that requests a tolerant protection coordination that is a technical inadmissible inaccuracy since to satisfy the fast start-up that remains inadequate for the data center service also for a lot of years. The failure of a final circuit not adequately selected and cleared can cause an impact on the fault selectivity on the switchboard section or on all the UPS supply. Starting systems for equipment should be adopted to solve the problem of inrush current and to allow an adequate protection coordination for the long service of the data center

A survey of challenges and solutions for the integration of renewable energy in datacenters

“…Redundancy built in the electric supply of the datacenter is essential for ensuring that such high numbers are reachable, but costs are also necessarily impacted due to over-sizing [103]. As stated in [104], redundancy is necessary to achieve high availability, but it also improves the maintainability, flexibility, expandability and fault management of datacenters. For example, turning off an UPS or a rack in case of maintenance or a fault, servers can remain powered using redundant feeds.…”