Data Center Power

Companies Explore Other Ways to Achieve Data Center Power

By Carrie Schmelkin TMCnet Web Editor

In the constant quest to find ways to reduce data center power consumption, AT&T (News - Alert) has teamed with Silicon Valley-based Bloom Energy to install 7.5MW of Bloom’s fuel cells across 11 AT&T sites in California, including some of its data centers.

The product, called Bloom Energy Servers, uses solid oxide fuel cells to convert air and natural gas into electricity through an electrochemical process, according to a recent DatacenterDynamics piece. The technology aids in reducing carbon-oxide emissions when compared to those associated with taking energy from the electrical grid by as much as 50 percent, according to AT&T, Moreover, the boxes will yield more than 62m kWh of energy a year.

AT&T is one of the first companies to turn to natural gas or hydrogen fuel cells in data centers, in an effort to find a more efficient way to achieve data center power. Other companies that have followed suit include a Fujitsu data center in Sunnyvale, California, the First National Bank’s data center in Omaha, Neb., and a Verizon (News - Alert) data center on Long Island, N.Y.

The desire to find ways to cut data center power expenses is ubiquitous in the data center space. Recently, a consortium of Indian companies formed to help promote “going green” within the data center through the measurement of data center power consumption.

The group, which is referred to as the Green Datacenter group, is compiled of industry leaders and consultants who will work with the Bureau of Energy Efficiency on guidelines covering electrical, cooling, operations, maintenance, IT and infrastructure management, according to a recent DatacenterDynamics piece.

One company that is leading the charge in monitoring data center power is Server Technology (News - Alert), a data leader that works to design, develop and provide the world's best power management products and system.

Server Technology relies on its Sentry Power Manager to measure, monitor and trend data center power usage.

“We are monitoring power usage, we are monitoring the environmentals and we are rolling all that information into the Sentry Power Manger” Senior Director of Software and Firmware Engineering Calvin Nicholson told TMCnet in a recent interview. “Once the information is rolled up into that tool then there’s a lot of different ways that the user can use that information. They can schedule reports so they can see what their power usage is, they can identify devices that are comatose or not doing any useful work and they can check those devices and/or turn those devices off.”