ecoult’s dual purpose energy storage featured in forbes online
DESCRIPTION
Many worry about the impact of data centers on the grid. But with a few technological advances and some clever business planning, data centers could become one of the best friends of the electric power industry.TRANSCRIPT
Ecoult’s Dual Purpose Energy Storage Featured in Forbes Online
Why Data Centers Could Be Good For The Grid
Many worry about the impact of data centers on the grid. But with a few technological advances and
some clever business planning, data centers could become one of the best friends of the electric
power industry.
The potential shift in how data centers are viewed would revolve around the way that
uninterruptable power supplies (UPSes) are used today and how they could be used, said Tze
Masters, CFO of Ecoult Energy Storage Solutions at the Energy Storage North America conference,
which took place this week in San Jose.
UPSes are essentially big, expensive cabinets filled with batteries designed to supply servers and
storage systems with electricity in the event of a power failure. All of the electricity flowing into data
centers flows through UPSes first, but in general they fulfill the same role as hostage negotiators:
they exist to get people through emergencies. Most of the time, UPSes are largely waiting around
for the big event.
Now cut to utilities. Utilities often spend inordinate amounts of money on equipment or services for
frequency regulation, i.e. technology for fine-tuning power generation.
Why not harness all of the fallow battery capacity sitting inside data centers in a given region and
turn it into a virtual resource for frequency regulation? PJM, the grid operator spanning
Pennsylvania, Virginia and the upper Midwest, will pay $40 per megawatt per hour for these
services. And the greater the number of data centers that participated in frequency regulation, the
more the risk that an individual company’s operations would be impacted. Utilities would only be
taking a little bit of power from each.
“Anyone putting in a UPS should consider it,” she said.
Technological changes would be necessary. A dual-function UPS would require different batteries:
an entire system might cost 30 percent more. Regulators would also have to permit utilities and grid
operators to buy these services. PJM has a thriving frequency regulation market. California does not.
But the advantages could be fairly interesting. Electric power can be one the largest operating
expenses for data centers: dragooning UPSes for frequency regulations could substantially reduce
those costs. Schneider Electric and other electric equipment providers would suddenly be able to
advertise their products as revenue generators, rather than a necessary cost that people would
rather avoid if possible. Software companies specializing in grid management would be able to
extend their applications to take on these tasks.
Best of all, it would help shift the energy storage industry forward. Energy storage has long been
held back by high costs. With dual purpose UPSes, storage service providers could dramatically
reduce their capital costs. “Dual purpose” in fact was one of the most uttered phrases at the three-
day event.