IBM tries running datacenters on solar power

By Sylvie Barak, EE Times -- EDN, November 22, 2011

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif -- IBM is harnessing the power of the sun with a massive installation of a 6,000-sq foot array of solar panels in Bangalore, India, which the company claims can run 50 kilowatts of computer equipment for around 330 days a year, running five hours a day.

The solar datacenter powerhouse is thought to be the first of its kind and could help companies in the developing world have access to electricity in places where the infrastructure grid is either inherently unstable or virtually non-existent.

IBM said it had specifically designed its solar farm to run high-voltage data centers, integrating AC- and DC-based servers, water-cooled computing systems and related electronics. IBM says the system in Bangalore can provide compute power of 25 to 30 teraflops using an IBM Power Systems server on a 50kW solar power supply.

The company said that by using high-voltage DC power conditioning methods  --  and reducing AC-DC conversion losses  -- it could cut energy consumption of data centers by about 10%, which would make a serious dent in terms of decreasing carbon emissions and the need for more polluting diesel based fuel systems, on which generators are usually run.


"The technology behind solar power has been around for many years, but until now, no one has engineered it for efficient use in IT," said Rod Adkins, a senior vice president at IBM's systems and technology group, adding that this was the first time a company had thought to bring clean, reliable, and efficient power to energy-intensive, industrial-scale electronics.

Dr Ponani Gopalakrishnan, a vice president at IBM's India software lab said the initial solar deployment was currently powering almost 20% of the local branch's data center energy requirements and that the experiment represented "significant opportunities for IBM to increase efficiencies, improve productivity, and drive innovation for businesses around the world."

It is thought IBM may even be able to store the incoming energy in batteries for use as and when it is needed.

The firm says it plans on packaging the service in order to sell it to customers by next year.

This story was originally posted by EE Times.