The way we produce and consume energy is changing. Electricity demand is skyrocketing, with levels expected to increase more than 50% by 2050. In addition to increasing demand, the world is faced with an urgent need to build more resilient, sustainable energy systems that are prepared to support the needs of generations to come.
Alongside the growth in overall electricity demand, the increasing power demands of data centers are adding urgency to grid resiliency and renewable energy projects. Data center electricity use is expected to grow 300% by 2035 as hyperscale cloud computing companies race to adopt new technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI). Renewable energy and microgrid solutions will play an essential role in the digitalized and electrified future.
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Many data center projects are working to integrate on-site renewable energy into project plans as they develop new locations or retrofit older sites. Renewable energy has many benefits for data centers. These include reducing reliance on the centralized grid, reducing emissions from data center operations, and the ability to perform peak shaving and demand response—pulling energy from different sources depending on factors such as price and total energy demand.
Enabling Renewables, Reducing Downtime
Data centers require uninterrupted power for operational continuity. The standard uptime in the data center industry is 99.67% at a minimum, with some data centers requiring as high as 99.99% uptime with fully redundant systems. For a Tier 4 data center supporting multimillion-dollar businesses, this means only 25 minutes of accepted downtime per year. To meet these standards, energy storage is essential to help ensure dependable power availability.
But energy storage is not only essential for data centers themselves; grid operators managing the increased power demand of data centers need energy storage as well. The impact of having power-intensive data centers plugged into the grid needs to be managed strategically. Energy storage plays a big part of that, allowing grid operators to intelligently scale power delivery up and down through storing and using energy in battery energy storage systems (BESS).
Additionally, to use renewables at all, energy storage is essential. Battery energy storage systems help bridge the gap between energy generation and energy use by storing energy in batteries at a prescribed rate and time. This decouples generation time from the time of use and allows energy to be delivered when consumers need it. As battery energy storage technology improves, the utilization of renewable resources will increase while improving grid reliability and price stability for consumers. Plus, connecting battery energy storage directly to distributed energy resources like onsite solar or wind can help reduce energy costs by using stored power when grid power is particularly expensive.
Cool Tech for Cool Systems
Energy storage is essential to the modernized grid, but it needs to be implemented appropriately. Interestingly enough, one of the core technologies enabling next-generation computing is also enabling the next generation of high-density energy storage—this is where liquid cooling comes in.
Traditionally, data center technology, much like energy storage technology, has relied on air cooling—technology that relies on pushing or pulling cooled air through IT racks. However, next-generation chips and other AI infrastructure need more than traditional cooling methods to keep them from overheating. In many cases, air cooling systems simply cannot generate enough cooling power to meet the demands of next-generation IT. When air cooling systems work harder to maintain optimal temperatures, facilities can face equipment breakdowns, unexpected shutdowns, and exorbitant energy costs.
Battery energy storage system engineers face similar issues. Battery technology is constantly improving with smaller and more powerful batteries available every year. These batteries generate a lot of heat, so as engineers work to fit more power into smaller spaces, the heat density of these installations can grow exponentially. Keeping batteries at the right temperatures to maintain the safety and functionality of installations is critical.
Liquid cooling involves a spectrum of technologies, from using chilled liquid lines to supplement the performance of air cooling to completely submerging equipment in nonconductive liquids. Liquid cooling is effective because liquid provides a much greater heat transfer capacity than air. It can also be pumped closer to the source of heat, capturing and transporting heat out of the system from the point at which it is generated. This helps liquid cooling increase power usage effectiveness, manage heat loads effectively, reduce energy costs and contribute to environmental sustainability.
In the same way data center managers want to prioritize using power on computing instead of cooling infrastructure, battery energy storage system manufacturers want to reduce total cost of energy (TCOE). This represents the cost of an energy storage installation, including the supporting infrastructure. By increasing the cooling capacity and reliability of battery energy storage systems with liquid cooling, battery module manufacturers can fit more, higher energy-dense batteries closer together and increase the power capacity of their installations without extreme increases in energy cost. This is due to liquid cooling being much more efficient than air cooling. Since liquid cooling also provides better temperature management, it can also help extend the system’s longevity, further decreasing the TCOE.
This is not to say there is no place for air cooling in energy storage. Air cooling still has great utility in managing the overall container temperature for control systems and monitoring, with liquid cooling being used to cool batteries themselves. These two types of cooling can work together in complete systems to manage battery temperatures, air temperatures and control and sensor temperatures in concert, keeping systems operational and people safe.
Power for our Future
Data centers will play a critical role in our future, so figuring out how to appropriately support their power needs while managing the needs of the electrical grid is critical. Effectively cooling battery energy storage installations is critical to designing clean energy systems that meet the demands of a more sustainable and electrified world. Borrowing and evolving technologies from the data center industry can help energy storage experts prepare for the future.
—Aaron Craig is the senior director of Vertical Growth at nVent.
