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Green data centres are “hot” in China – APC by Schneider

Tony Chan | January 12, 2011 | 0 Comments

Power systems specialist, APC by Schneider, has unveiled a new strategy that will focus on helping data centre operators drive energy efficiency through the implementation of its traditional power and power management solutions, but in an architecture that features enhanced integration and automation of the passive infrastructure within facilities.

The new solution, dubbed InfraStruxure, was unveiled by the company in December 2010 to the China market at a media event in Beijing, which I attended. The architecture features a complete set of integrated passive infrastructure elements for data centre environments, as well as a management software layer for automating and optimising routine tasks. The set of products include its traditional UPS units, so-called InRow cooling, which facilitates hot/cold aisle cooling schemes, sensor arrays for measuring temperature and humidity, as well as management software that integrates and automates the entire installation.

Data centres, especially green data centres, are a “hot” topic in China, according Lisa Kuk, vice president and general manager of Datacenter Business for China at Schneider Electric. In her opinion, the market is evolving quickly in accordance to several trends, driving the requirement for both efficiency and scale. In other words, Chinese data centres need an upgrade to cope with increasingly demanding IT environments.

Other executives at APC by Schneider, the unit that is specifically addressing the power system requirements of the IT industry within Schneider Electric, explained that IT requirements for data centres are escalating in China, but that growth is now stretching the capacity of current facilities, such as space and power. As such, data centre operators are now increasingly looking to optimise their performance metrics in order to squeeze out much needed capacity.
The most obvious solution is to drive the energy efficiency of current facilities, hence boosting existing capacity by squeezing what power and space that is currently available. At the same time, corporations are now embracing the “green” trend, partly due to increasing realisation of the cost benefits of more efficient facilities, and at least partly due to anticipation that the government will implement stricter guidelines for data centre operations.

One often quoted measure of efficiency by APC is PUE, or power utilisation efficiency, which measures the actual amount of power that goes through to power IT systems inside a data centre infrastructure. The lower the number, the more efficient a data centre is supposed to be.

According to APC executives, Chinese data centres currently are operating with PUE scores as high as 4, which leaves much room for improvement, compared to average scores of around 2 and below for the latest data centres in mature markets such as the US.

Many of these Chinese operators are now approaching APC and asking for turnkey solutions with PUE scores of around 2 to 2.2 as targets, APC said. The good news for APC is that these data centre operators are no longer only concern about cost savings, but see the investment as a long term goal to increase their productivity, hence competitiveness, in the market place.

That’s not to say the road to more green data centres is without challenges. As Kuk pointed out, China has a different set of dynamics when it comes to data centre facilities because there are very few purpose-built facilities like in markets such as the US and the UK.

The fact is, she noted, most Chinese data centres, instead of constructed from scratch on dedicated real estate, are usually located in existing buildings, including high rises, with existing space and power limitation. While many of the physical sites have been adapted and optimised for data centre operations, there are many uncertainties remaining, such as access to more power and connectivity.

At the same time, the age of the buildings is also a major concern when it comes to upgrades. Given the rapid development of the Chinese real estate market, the possibility of redevelopment of the buildings themselves is emerging as a major risk for data centre operators, especially when it comes time to make investments for upgrades.

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