Europe | May 4, 2023

Data centres and how to make them more sustainable, reliable, and less expensive


 

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UK, Manchester: Using biodegradable, fire-safe ester-based insulating fluids in electrical transformers can directly contribute to greener, more efficient, more reliable and less expensive data centre operations, according to a whitepaper published by manufacturer M&I Materials. The company makes the MIDEL brand of ester transformer fluids, first launched in the 1970s.

Barry Menzies, managing director for MIDEL commented “Data centres consume copious amounts of power 24/7/365 – and more are being built to serve the “always-on” demands of data storage and transmission. But they could and should be greener. One way to help achieve this goal is to install power conversion equipment that maximises energy efficiency while reducing overall costs associated with transformers for these facilities.

“In our whitepaper, we discuss how transformers using MIDEL ester fluids (as opposed to mineral oil) are the right choice for data centres, from environmental, sustainability, cost, and reliability perspectives.”

The whitepaper also examines the critical issue of operational uptime. As key components of power control infrastructure for these facilities, transformer reliability is critical. Power failure is the biggest cause of outages at data centres – The American Society of Civil Engineers has charted the rising cost of US data centre outages, growing from $505,000 in 2010 to $740,000 in 2016, or roughly $8,800 for each minute that the data centre experiences an outage. Accordingly, increasing reliability through the use of MIDEL-filled transformers is explored.

Other topics include a comparison of MIDEL-filled transformers to Cast-Resin and Dry-Type transformers regarding energy efficiency. Reducing transformer Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) with MIDEL is also explained.

MIDEL fluids are currently used in Data Centres around the world – a recent example being the SG5 International Business Exchange (IBX) data centre in Singapore, a nine-story facility located at the Tanjong Kling data centre park.

 

“Powering Data Centers – a critical challenge” can be downloaded here.

 

Source: MIDEL