By Lee Harrison, Peritus Power
Environmental concerns and rising energy costs are spurring industry and government groups to develop requirements for high-efficiency AC and DC power conversion, leading to energy-efficient servers. Meeting the newest specifications will demand knowledge of competing power-conversion topologies, components, and design.
In addition to environmental concerns, the increasing cost of electricity is driving data-center managers to more energy-efficient installations. As utility bills become the primary expense for data centers, electricity costs now outweigh real-estate costs, with power consumption per data center ranging from 2 to 22 MW. In 2007, the Internet accounted for 9.4% of total US electricity consumption and 5.3% of global electricity consumption. Networking equipment, such as modems, routers, hubs, and switches, accounted for about 25% of the electricity demand in an average office. If the computers and servers in an infrastructure require 200 kW, then the networking components in that infrastructure need 50 kW. In addition, 45% of the power a data center consumes is for air-conditioning and cooling. In modern data centers, performance per watt has become more critical than performance per processor.
