Examining Future Data Center Power Supply Infrastructures

Abstract

The rapid expansion of data processing in the past few years has created a massive demand for data center installations worldwide, and energy conservation strategies have become crucial. The enormous increase in data center installations and their significant contribution to global energy consumption require the implementing of energy saving techniques and participating in supporting the power grid. This thesis presents an architecture-level review of power distribution systems in data centers, examining AC, DC, and hybrid architectures with a focus on enhancing efficiency and reliability One of the key areas that can be enhanced to improve the overall energy efficiency of data centers and the provision of ancillary services for the grid is the Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS). This thesis reviews the current state-of-the-art power supply systems and topologies mainly used in data centers and aims to identify ways to increase the overall energy efficiency of data center power supply systems. Moreover, this work presents a detailed analysis of the power supply losses and proposes systems that can improve the con- version efficiency of UPS systems under various loading conditions. The performance metrics in the data center business need to be more accurate. Therefore, the variety of performance metrics, considering energy efficiency, sustainability, reliability and costs, are analysed in the thesis. The conclusion of the thesis wraps up the findings and provides guidelines for planning the power supply infrastructure for various conditions.