Data centers are costly and complex to design and construct. Understanding power requirements is fundamental for any construction project, but especially for mission critical environments. That is why Giga Data Center chose ABB for its complete power solutions. Following its acquisition of GE Industrial Solutions (GE) in July 2018, ABB’s range now includes "Best of Both’ solutions", combining elements from ABB and GE to provide a more comprehensive offer that meets increasing demand for fast, decisive data center deployment.

Based in the US, Giga Data Centers aims to make modular data center technology available to every company, not just hyperscale data centers. One of the company’s core values is to offer the same levels of efficiency and flexibility at a competitive price to everyone seeking colocation services.

For the new data center in Mooresville, North Carolina, Giga worked closely with ABB from the outset to develop the critical power distribution design.

The objectives of the project were to maximize scalability while achieving an ultra-low power usage effectiveness (PUE) rating, which is the ratio of total power consumed by the data center versus the power delivered to its servers.  According to an Uptime Institute survey, the average PUE in 2019 was 1.67. Giga achieved a PUE of 1.15 for up to 50 kW per rack cabinet.

“We chose ABB because we know how good their technical and commercial teams are, and we needed a solid partner willing to work with us throughout the entire process to deliver as efficient an electrical system as possible,” said Jake Ring, CEO, Giga Data Centers. “We knew ABB shared our commitment to innovation, had the right technologies, and could handle the challenging timelines.”

PARTNERSHIP

ABB and Giga jointly developed the system design specifications as well as the sequence of operations for input and output switchboards. The solution comprised low-voltage switchboards, dry type transformers, and uninterrupted power supplies (UPS) to support the IT server and network equipment infrastructure.

Giga chose the ‘Best of Both’ by leveraging the legacy GE TLE UPS for its customer’s IT server load and the ABB Decentralized Parallel Architecture (DPA) UPS for its site server load. The IT server load is powered by power distribution and protection equipment housed on a mezzanine where footprint was a constraint. The 1-MW TLE solution was ideal for that space because of the compact size and its ability to integrate with lithium-ion batteries, eliminating the need for additional cooling systems. Giga chose the DPA UPS system for the network servers because it was more effective for lower power requirements and can easily be scaled as the facility expands.

“This project demonstrates the benefits of ABB’s acquisition of GE Industrial Solutions and our broader ‘Best of Both’ solutions,” said Ciaran Flanagan, Head of Global Data Center Solutions, ABB. “It is a great example of ABB working collaboratively with its customers to use technology to develop innovative results. The addition of lithium-ion battery systems instead of traditional lead-acid batteries, directly addressed the two top concerns of critical power users: availability and total cost of ownership. The result is a more compact and more efficient data center that meets all of Giga’s requirements and delivers outstanding power distribution and protection performance.”