EDCS Power’s 100kW DC-UPS & Zero U combine to deliver breakthrough electrical efficiency in data centers
San Jose, CA (PRWEB) March 09, 2015
Tomorrow at the Open Compute Summit (OCP), EDCS Power will introduce the 100kW DC-UPS module and the company’s Zero U rack power solutions for open architecture compute systems. The DC-UPS and Zero U solutions are optimized to function as the two end points of a high efficiency, simple to deploy, direct current power system. From the utility meter at medium voltage AC, down to the motherboard, typical data centers go through 7 to 8 energy transformations. EDCS Power’s patented direct current system reduces this to four (4) extremely energy efficient conversions.
“Modern AC-UPS based architectures have really plateaued in terms of their potential for performance gains. Only by switching to DC distribution, and eliminating the redundant conversions and AC legacy issues, can there be any meaningful cost breakthrough in data center power delivery efficiency,” said John Meinecke, CEO of EDCS Power.
The engineering team gained their expertise in creating large DC systems through many years building multi megawatt DC systems for numerous DoD (Department of Defense) applications. “Because of the team’s unique background designing and deploying systems with high voltage DC, and at massive scale, we’ve been fortunate enough to build on the know how around safely controlling 380Vdc. The team has done this at levels relevant for cloud infrastructure,” explained Meinecke.
The 100kW DC-UPS takes in standard 480Vac from the upstream transformer, like a typical AC based backup system, but then distributes the power in DC (+/-190Vdc) to the downstream Zero U racks. The Zero U is optimized to receive narrowband direct current power and convert this to 12Vdc for distribution on an open hardware bus bar. Due to the narrowband DC power quality, the Zero U PSU assemblies do not need a number of the components normally required by an AC system. The compact direct current power supply assemblies mount directly on to the bus bar saving valuable space within the rack. Additionally, these power assemblies convert power at 97% efficiency. In other words, the patented Zero U PSU’s are 2% more efficient than a typical Titanium rated AC-PSU design. This efficiency gain comes at a fraction of the cost per server of an equivalent Titanium PSU system.
The Zero U systems are configurable to meet a customer specified rack power budget. It can be scaled from the low 2kW range for cold storage, up to greater than 36kW per rack for power hungry High Performance Compute (HPC) applications.
When asked what market these DC-UPS and Zero U systems target, Meinecke said, “We saw a need in the open hardware movement for power solutions that could deliver the same high levels of energy efficiency that the big players enjoy. Enterprise and private cloud customers will get higher efficiencies without needing to increase fault risks above 208V, or place batteries on the IT floor, or sacrifice 2N architectures. We’ve built the DC-UPS and Zero U to solve these very real facility challenges. This direct current 380Vdc power system is an enabling technology in the adoption of low cost open hardware into the enterprise and private cloud.”
EDCS Power is at the OCP Summit 2015 in San Jose, California, March 10-11 in booth D23. EDCS Power is available to talk more about how their Zero U solutions can save you time, and money in deploying and operating your next cloud power system at scale.
