[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Consulting Specifying Engineer podcast. I'm your host, Amara Rosgas, and I've connected with Erin McDonald from Elevated, based in Baltimore. In this episode, we'll be talking about data centers. Thanks for joining me today, Erin.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Thank you for having me, Amara.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So it's great to connect with you, Erin, and you've got such an interesting background. I wanted to talk a little bit about that first.
So, Erin McDonald is the CEO and co owner of Elevated, where she leads in Internet of things integration and building management software, working in lighting and building controls. She has more than two decades of experience in design and technology.
So we're not just talking about data centers, Erin. We're talking about a lot of things.
And let me jump right into kind of an interesting topic.
How is the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence changing the design and infrastructure requirements of modern data centers?
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Well, in so many ways, and it's happening very rapidly and we're sort of lagging behind right now in our technology advancement because we don't have the infrastructure to support it. And, you know, happens in a lot of different ways. Number one, our biggest problem is that we have increased power and cooling demands.
It's significantly increased in computational power. AI has. So requirements of data centers leading are leading to a need for more robust power and cooling systems. So that means more energy. So the traditional infrastructure and life cycles around 25 years is being outpaced by rapid evolution of AI technologies, which now demand upgrades of every 10 years or less to keep up with the increase 25 to 50 megawatts expected. And it's expected to increase 40 times that in the next couple of years. So I heard one Mark Zuckerberg said a few months ago, you can imagine one AI being powered by a single mini nuclear power plant.
And that was really significant to me. And then some of the other things is regional impact here. I live in Baltimore, but in the Northern Virginia area, the data center's growth is exploding.
And there's that we're all working together to kind of with those power constraints to allow as many data centers as we can within our regions. You know, in some of the design considerations that must now account from an engineer perspective, they have to account for higher energy densities and the need for more efficient cooling systems.
And this includes exploring advanced cooling techniques like liquid cooling and implementing energy efficient designs. So that's really changing some of the systems that, you know, DC power grid systems that we had been talking about for so many years never really took off. But now it makes sense because the energy constraints are so great. So infrastructure adaption needs to happen.
There's a growing trend towards modular and flexible data center designs that can be quickly upgraded or reconfigured as new technology comes on the market.
So there are a lot of considerations of how AI is changing the design and infrastructure. But it's massive.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: And you can't see me shaking my head here, but that is massive and it's tremendous growth. Like hard to keep up with.
[00:03:53] Speaker B: It is hard to keep up with.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: So you mentioned this a little bit, Erin, but what are some of the key benefits of implementing DC power systems in data centers and then how do they contribute to that integration of smart building technologies?
[00:04:10] Speaker B: Yeah, the first thing is that the efficiency gains. So you can gain anywhere from 12 to 30% more power when you're not converting AC to DC and DC to AC.
If you can feed from even your solar panels straight DC into your equipment, you reduce your conversion rates. It's also just a more energy efficient way to go.
One of the things that allows for you to do is to create these smart buildings that can be remotely managed.
And that's one of the significant advantages of DC power systems to the ability to manage remotely. One of the biggest problems that the data centers are having is finding great help to manage these data centers 24, 7 with people on site. This can help give people eyes and ears while all off site. And some of the software programs that are being written these days are all inclusive of every system that is under a data center roof. So that's really important too. Instead of having siloed software systems, DC power systems allowed you to integrate into one.
So that's crucial for, such as for adding smart systems, sensors and automated systems. For instance, let's think about, you know, being able to manage every single switch for energy usage, real time and meter as well. And these technologies rely on consistent, reliable power to function effectively. So DC systems provide a more stable power supply for these applications.
And there, there is some thought about being able to add and subtract it and modify these systems for the, for future. So as new technology comes in on the market, you know, you, it's, these are, these are infrastructures that are easy, easily, easily can be easily converted in different ways.
You know, when I talk about smart building systems in general, we talk about every new thing that comes on the market. You know, when we were back prior to the pandemic, some of the schools were looking for active shooter systems.
But for data centers, you could be looking for leak detection and writing software to Notify somebody should there be leak detection in any of the cooling systems. These are all things that you can do with DC power systems that make it a benefit and, you know, give a strong return on investment very early on.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: So automation and controls are obviously prevalent here.
Can you elaborate a little on the role of advanced lighting and controls and optimizing a data center? And then, you know, how do you comply with those energy standards?
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Well, what's really interesting about a DC system when it comes to lighting is you can eliminate the drivers for lights and you can feed direct DC to those lights. And what that does is eliminates the heat from the lights. And that's a significant source of heat for data centers. So not having to worry about that heat and have extra cooling, it's kind of you not only get the energy savings on the light fixture themselves and the energy optimization of that, but also saving on cooling, not having to, you know, cool what is heating.
So selective lighting controls are also really important on a granular level for data centers. So making sure that we're not lighting for there are no humans and when there are humans there, it safely comes on. So that's really important to have compliance with energy codes. You know, modern lighting controls are designed to meet and exceed the current energy codes and ASHRAE 90.1. But this ensures that data centers will not comply with the regulatory requirements, but also benefit from incentives and rebates.
You know, things like the inflation Reduction act, some of these, you know, we can all work on some of the rebates with some of these government programs to help save energy in that way and give a more robust return on investment and then enhanced monitoring and maintenance.
Smart lighting systems can be integrated with building management systems. And that's really important for the continuous monitoring and control.
And then safety and security is really important to data centers. So making sure they're well lit during emergencies, facilitating a quick response.
Great.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: And I'm happy that you mentioned monitoring because that's my next question.
How do modern energy metering and data management systems enhance that real time monitoring in data centers? I mean, I know this is a huge issue, right?
[00:09:35] Speaker B: So real time data access, and that's the most important is understanding what's going on in your data center at the moment and how much energy you're utilizing.
It can be, there can be proactive maintenance involved in that as well that with detailed data on energy consumption and thermal performance.
So you know, your building can be responsive to some of the, some of the conditions going on without the interaction of a human being and Then the enhanced data analytics, which are really important so you know, really understand the detailed analysis of power and thermal data, enabling the engineers to identify trends and even AI at this point to identify trends and make data driven decisions.
And then it's just the ease of use is really not having these siloed systems within your data center. You'll have one interface to go to and really understand what's going on and the, you know, the, the current and constant metering of embodied carbon that you're, that your building is using.
[00:10:52] Speaker A: So it sounds like there are a lot of benefits here and there are probably also some challenges.
So what are those benefits and challenges of transitioning to say an autonomous data center with integrated fault management or microgrid controllers? What does that look like?
[00:11:10] Speaker B: So enhanced fault management. So autonomous data centers are equipped with advanced fault management systems so they can detect and respond to issues such as power outages very quickly and equipment failures in real time and without requiring human intervention. And that reduces the downtime a lot and enhances the reliability of the data center operations.
And then microgrid integration is important because implementing microgrid controllers, particularly those using DC voltage, allows for more efficient power management and the ability to seamlessly integrate into renewable energy sources.
Remote monitoring and control is important. Autonomous data centers can be monitored and controlled remotely. So that's really important. But it's expensive to, it's expensive to do on. It's about 30% more in a new construction to create a DC data center. But the return on investment goes on for years and depending we just worked on just, we've been working on a few different projects recently, but the returns on some of these DC power systems can be up to sometimes a million dollars a year. When it comes to the insights you're receiving, the downtime that you're saving yourself from the metering and monitoring of equipment, allowing you to be more proactive, eliminating the heat from the lights. So it is an initial cost and that's the biggest hurdle that we have to get past.
But it's the way of the future.
Digital buildings, if you will, particularly some of these buildings can move from, you know, they can move from their standard to their battery powered systems at peak hours so that they can, they can reduce the draw off the grid.
And those kinds of smart interactive buildings, you know, will, will be adopted not only in data centers, but in commercial, commercial buildings. As we move forward with this advanced digital age that we are in.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: It does sound like there is a lot of opportunity here. Erin, thank you.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: Yeah, great conversation. That was Erin McDonald with from Elevated talking about data centers and really making them smarter. For more information on data centers, smart buildings and similar topics, visit Consulting specifying
[email protected].
thanks for listening and we'll catch you next time.
