Jan, 2002 : Utilities Struggling to Provide Power to IDCs: Platts

📅 January 18, 2002 - Electric utilities are struggling to provide service to power-hungry electronic data centers, which can consume eight to 50 times more electricity per square foot than typical commercial buildings, according to a new series of reports from Platts (platts.com), the energy information, research, consulting and marketing services business of The McGraw-Hill Companies.

In many cases, utilities are reluctant to provide the infrastructurerequired to supply such huge amounts of power, leading a number of planneddata facilities to develop their own power sources.
"The reported power capacities of these high-density electronic loads moreclosely resemble those of large industrial facilities, such as oilrefineries and smelters, than capacities of the warehouses that they looklike from the outside," states Jay Stein, director of technology assessmentand author of the Platts E Source studies.
For example, a 344,000-square-foot data center under construction inWashington State, when complete, will be capable of drawing up to 105 MW -enough power to support more than 100,000 households.
Utilities such as Pacific Gas & Electric, Seattle City Light, CommonwealthEdison, Consolidated Edison and Public Service Electric & Gas are beingapproached by large data center developers and operators like Exodus, Level3 Communications, Qwest, Williams Communications, and Globix.
However, Stein notes, "Realistically, data center developers need notrequest so much power, because in the near future, electronic equipment willbe far more efficient than it is today. In fact, there is already moreefficient equipment trickling into the market." In the past year, Steinsays, Internet servers have come on the market that allow data centeroperators to pack in eight times as many servers as they are ordinarily ableto accommodate, but without pushing up their electric bills.
The study, "Delivering Energy Services to Internet Hotels and OtherHigh-Density Electronic Loads," also reveals the debate between data centerdevelopers and utilities as to who will pay for the additional costsassociated with outfitting a building with substantially higher powerdemands. According to Stein, "Utilities don't want to pay for the hardwarerequired to operate a data center, yet the data center developers feel it istheir right as paying end-users of electricity to receive these upgrades aspart of their general service."