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compatible front-end AC-DC power
supplies such as CUI’s PSE-3000 and
PSA-1100 and Novum® digital IBCs
and non-isolated DC-DC digital POLs.
Continuously optimizing the power-
conversion architecture and bus
voltages will yield improvements in
each converter. In a power supply
comprising a front-end AC/DC
converter with average efficiency
of 95%, an IBC operating at 93%,
and a POL operating at 88%, an
improvement of just 1% in each stage
can reduce the power dissipated from
22.2% of the input power to 19.6%.
This not only represents a 12%
reduction in power losses, but also
relieves the load on the data-center
cooling system thereby delivering
extra energy savings.
The Next Step:
Improving Utilization
Though Virtualization
Understanding how data centers
use power and then leveraging
software to intelligently provision
and manage that power is another
way to realize significant energy
savings. Such virtualization of the
power infrastructure makes power
an elastic resource and can improve
utilization by up to 50% within the
existing power footprint. This not only
means improved efficiency in terms of
the power consumed but also avoids
the capital expenditure of bringing
additional, and unnecessary, resources
into play. Virtual Power Systems,
a company that is championing
Software Defined Power®, has
recently partnered with CUI to extend
its software solution into the hardware
domain with an Intelligent Control of
Energy (ICE) Block that will enhance
the management of power sources
within data centers and similar
ecosystems.
Conclusion
The Internet of Everything will feed
huge quantities of data into the
Cloud, which must be processed
quickly and stored for later reference.
As the demands on cloud data
centers increase, energy efficiency is
becoming an increasingly important
factor governing operating costs. At
the board level, energy lost during
power conversion can be reduced
by adjusting bus voltages as load
conditions change. PMBus-compatible
converters allow real-time software-
based control to achieve a valuable
reduction in these losses. At the
system-level, virtualization via a
combination of optimized hardware
and software will greatly improve
power utilization in data centers as
capacity demands continue to rise.
Figure 3. Potential advantages of Software Defined Power in data
centers
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