When the Steel ORCA team started planning, it was our intention of being the “Greenest Data Center on Earth,” and, as a data center/services company, we were in the enviable position of being unrestrained by established corporate policies, legacy designs, or outdated facilities. Beginning with a completely blank slate, we embarked on a two-year effort of looking at virtually every advanced design, concept, and product that showed promise of delivering real energy efficiency while maintaining or improving reliability and offering reasonable economic return.
Along the way we found numerous solutions and were constantly challenged by new ideas/products in the development pipeline that outperformed the latest advanced products in the marketplace. It quickly became apparent that if we were to lay claim title to being “Greenest,” we would need to look towards advanced technologies designed to support the next generations of technology as well as capable of sustaining the legacy technology today. High-voltage direct current (HVDC) is one of the technologies we examined, and it became our preferred power distribution medium.