ABB: Low-carbon construction and intelligent operation and maintenance are the main challenges faced by data center power supply and distribution

In the digital era, the demand for computing power in the whole society is becoming more and more urgent, and accelerating the construction of computing power and promoting the development of data centers in the direction of high computing power, high security, high technology, and high energy efficiency have become problems that must be solved at an accelerated pace. Among them, the development of power supply and distribution, which is the core of ensuring the normal operation of data centers, can be said to be crucial, and the current challenges and related solutions have become a topic of great concern.

A few days ago, the "Digital Craftsman" interview column hosted by the China IDC Circle Enterprise Club invited Bei Zhen, general manager of marketing and sales of ABB Electric China's low-voltage system, to share this in-depth.

Bei Zhen said that the challenges faced by data center power supply and distribution are mainly manifested in low-carbon construction and intelligent operation and maintenance. In addition to reasonable planning and site selection, low-carbon construction should also use energy-saving innovative technologies, new energy use, and energy storage, and how to ensure the safety and stability of the power grid and maximize the local consumption of new energy is an important challenge when developing energy storage. Intelligent O&M is still in its infancy, and it is difficult to achieve unified, cross-system, and data correlation matching.

The difficulties in the development of power supply and distribution in data centers include insufficient supply in the labor market, unsystematic personnel training, difficult preventive maintenance of equipment operation and maintenance management, and difficulty in discovering complex problems and hidden dangers.

In this case, based on its long-term experience and big data in the field of power distribution, ABB has realized the digitalization and intelligence of data center power distribution through innovative breakthroughs at the equipment level, interval communication level, and station control operating system layer, which can meet the needs of multi-dimensional operation and maintenance.

At the same time, for the sustainable development of data centers, Bei Zhen pointed out that the road to carbon neutrality and green computing power for data centers is a long-term process, which requires holistic thinking from a systemic perspective from all walks of life. Through continuous reform and innovation in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, the full integration of software and hardware resources can be realized, and only in this way can the final conversion efficiency from energy to computing power be truly improved.

The following is the transcript of the interview:

Q1: What do you think are the challenges and difficulties faced by the data center industry in terms of intelligent power supply and distribution and green and low-carbon transformation?

Bei Zhen: We know that in recent years, with the release of a series of policies such as new infrastructure, "dual carbon" goals, and "Eastern Data and Western Computing", the data center industry is gradually evolving from the rough development of the past to high-quality and refined development, which puts forward higher requirements for the construction and operation and maintenance of data centers.

At present, we believe that there are the following challenges and difficulties in the construction and operation and maintenance of data centers:

In terms of challenges, the first one is in low-carbon construction. In recent years, when our industry experts are predicting industry trends, some high-frequency words have emerged, including: high-density, integration, green and low-carbon, and intelligent. Among them, green and low-carbon is a constant theme in the industry in recent years. In terms of green and low-carbon solutions, in addition to some reasonable planning and site selection, energy-saving innovative technologies and new energy use can also be used, including some energy storage.

As we all know, new energy has the characteristics of intermittency, which is not only poor controllability, but also easy to cause instability of the power grid. Therefore, how to ensure the safety and stability of the power grid and how to maximize the local consumption of new energy is a challenge we face in low-carbon construction.

The second challenge, I think, is in terms of intelligent operations. In the whole life cycle of data centers, there is a common understanding in the industry that "three points depend on construction, and seven points depend on operation and maintenance". At present, most of our traditional data centers are still in the initial stage of intelligent operation and maintenance, and more of them only realize the process management of personnel, tasks and resources through the status, operation and monitoring of various subsystems. The collected information is often for statistical analysis of data within some subsystems, so it is actually unable to carry out a unified, cross-system, data correlation matching analysis.

At the same time, we may all know that the key to achieving the O&M goals of good availability, high efficiency, and low cost in data centers lies in the collaborative optimization of our O&M personnel, assets, and energy. How to do this is another challenge we face in the field of intelligent operations.

Now that I'm done talking about the challenges, I'll talk about some of the hard points.

I think the first difficulty is in the people. In recent years, with the rapid development of our industry, we need a large number of operation and maintenance personnel. However, our labour market is undersupplied and the skill levels of our people are uneven.

As you know, this inspection method often causes us high labor costs, low operation and maintenance efficiency, and low quality. For the training of our operation and maintenance personnel, at present, we only use factory manufacturer training, quarterly emergency drill training, and let them participate in some cooperation with the handover of the new computer room and third-party testing, which means that a large number of operation and maintenance personnel usually do not get systematic and actual operation drills.

ABB: Low-carbon construction and intelligent operation and maintenance are the main challenges faced by data center power supply and distribution

After talking about people, let's talk about some problems in the operation and maintenance management of our equipment.

We also know that data centers are generally operational, and there are very few large-scale power outages. Our customers typically take advantage of some utility switching drill time windows each year for some equipment maintenance, and it is not possible to perform preventive maintenance at the intervals specified by our power preventive trials. And as we all know, some of the slightly more complex problems and hidden dangers that occur in our operation and maintenance process are actually difficult to directly judge with the naked eye of our operation and maintenance personnel or simple detection tools.

Q2: When you introduced the challenges and difficulties, you mentioned that "three points depend on construction, and seven points depend on operation". What innovative technologies and solutions does ABB have in terms of digitalization and intelligence of power distribution, especially in intelligent operation and maintenance?

Bei Zhen: In my opinion, it actually contains three levels, the first level is at the device level, the second level is at the interval level, and the third level is at the station control operating system level.

First, let's take a look at digital solutions at the device level.

We know that power distribution equipment will be affected by factors such as electrical aging, mechanical aging, environmental aging and thermal aging during the whole life cycle. In fact, our equipment, it is in a process of constant deterioration. The current extent of this deterioration is recognizable. We use IoT temperature measurement technology and embedded sensor technology to collect real-time data at key points of the equipment, and then with the help of ABB's long-term experience and large amount of data accumulated in the field of power distribution, we can evaluate the health status of the entire equipment and diagnose the potential fault through multi-dimensional dynamic mechanism algorithms, so as to ensure that we can identify the hidden dangers of the faulty equipment before the fault occurs and give predictive expert operation and maintenance suggestions.

Next, let's take a look at ABB's digital solutions at the spacer level, i.e. the communication layer. In fact, we realize the automatic and programmed operation of equipment through communication and data sharing between devices. For example, through the IEC 61850 information interaction mode, we can realize the operation and control logic of the linkage of the upper and lower switches of the power distribution system. We can make sure that our systems are self-aware and self-healing. At the same time, in the event of a fault, it can quickly locate the fault, quickly cut off and isolate the fault, and restore the power supply of the system, so as to minimize the impact of the fault.

Finally, let's introduce the intelligent solution at the station control level, that is, the integrated solution of ABB's smart energy and power distribution management system. This all-in-one solution not only includes the equipment health asset management we mentioned above, but also includes the full-link monitoring and monitoring of the entire power distribution system of the data center, so as to achieve in-depth visualization of various electrical parameters of the power distribution system. At the same time, this system can also realize the dynamic collaborative optimization of energy efficiency between power supply systems, cooling systems, and IT systems based on the energy consumption mechanism model, so as to help our customers further optimize PUE.

In addition, for those who need new energy access or energy storage system layout, our system also helps customers to track energy trajectories and flexibly optimize sources, storage and loads. On this platform, we can also provide fault simulation emergency operation drills for our O&M personnel, so as to improve the O&M level of O&M personnel.

Q3: At present, the proportion of new energy is increasing, what are the challenges brought by this change in energy structure to the power distribution of data centers? What are your thoughts on this, and what do you think is the direction of power distribution in data centers?

Bei Zhen: We believe that the change in the structure of the energy supply side should be more led by our power supply side. Our data center is actually a customer on the power side, so the data center is in order to achieve the goal of low carbon. On the one hand, we suggest that we can consider building or purchasing new energy, including replacing diesel with energy storage. But at the same time, we also suggest that our customers can continue to look for ways to simplify the power distribution architecture, including how to achieve multi-system co-tuning. We believe that this is the only way to truly improve the energy efficiency of infrastructure and IT equipment.

At present, ABB's smart and distribution management system can help our customers in the following two ways. First of all, in terms of new energy access, it can ensure the reliable access and safe operation of wind power and photovoltaic, improve the local consumption capacity of new energy, and truly help our customers maximize the use of new energy; At the same time, in terms of energy efficiency, we can help customers coordinate and control the energy production and consumption of the entire data center campus, intelligently predict the production load, actively and flexibly allocate those adjustable loads, and improve the overall energy efficiency, so as to truly help our customers save energy and reduce emissions.

Q4: What is ABB's mission and vision to promote the sustainable development of data centers, and what are the current practices?

Bei Zhen: The road to carbon neutrality and green innovation for data centers is actually a long-term process, which requires all sectors of the industry to think holistically from a systemic perspective. Through the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, we will continue to reform and innovate to achieve the final full integration of software and hardware, and only in this way can we truly improve the final conversion efficiency from energy to computing power.

Positioned as an enabler in the industry, ABB has always been committed to developing innovative technologies for electrification, automation and digitalization, and continues to provide our customers with a wealth of products and solutions that are targeted for clean energy utilization, energy efficiency optimization and electrification rate improvement. In fact, while we are helping our customers achieve greater efficiency and greener, ABB itself is also promoting our green, low-carbon and sustainable development path in an orderly manner.

In 2020, we launched a carbon neutrality timeline to achieve carbon neutrality in our own operations globally by 2030. At present, a number of ABB's subsidiaries have obtained the "Carbon Neutrality Certification" and the title of "Green Factory" by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

ABB Xiamen Industrial Park has taken the lead in building a carbon-neutral park and a demonstration base for sustainable and intelligent manufacturing. With the photovoltaic system installed on our factory premises, we have replaced 50% of the entire campus with green electricity. By adopting ABB's innovative energy control system, integrating the application of new energy access and energy storage system, we have greatly reduced the carbon emissions of our park and improved the efficiency of the factory's electricity use. The implementation of this project, I think, has actually shown a clear operational scenario for our customers and provided a good role model.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to express ABB's willingness to work with our data center colleagues to continue to contribute to the smart, green and sustainable development of our data centers.

ABB: Low-carbon construction and intelligent operation and maintenance are the main challenges faced by data center power supply and distribution

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