Loadbanks & data centres - a key relationship
LOADBANKS
Paul Smethurst, Managing Director of Hillstone Products, reveals something of the research and subsequent development work which has led to the recent launch of the new GENSET loadbank range, a permanent loadbank solution – helping to reduce energy costs and increase reliability in data centres, reports UKPN.
P
aul Smethurst, Managing Director of Hillstone Products, reveals some- thing of the research and subsequent development work which has led to the recent launch of the new GENSET load- bank range, a permanent loadbank solution – helping to reduce energy costs and increase reliability in data centres.
“Hillstone has been at the forefront of the loadbanks for some years now. One, key and significant development for us as a company occurred in 2009 with a request from Telecity to purchase a total of 2000kW of rack load banks for testing a new large empty white space data hall,” reports Paul Smethurst, Managing Director of Hillstone Products. “Our design team created the 6RM, a single-phase and three-phase server simula- tor with granular heat dissipation and adjustable delta T from 5°C to 20°C. Then, to overcome not having any available cabinets, we designed the 20kW mini-tower,” he explains.
“In 2010 when the BBC’s new home at Media City in Salford needed loadbanks for IST commissioning, Hillstone was ideally placed, just 20 minutes down the road, to heat
load the studios and datacentre. The project was delivered with support from our data centre testing team to Bovis Lend Lease & NG Baileys. “
He reveals: “Our recent research into why a
datacentre needs a permanent load bank was initiated by an occasion when I shared a power workshop with Ian Bitterlin at the Datacentre Transformed Conference in Manchester in July 2016. His matter-of-fact statement that 'every datacentre needs a loadbank' prompted my own question - “Why?“ - and also - "How can this increase my sales of loadbanks?"
He explains: “Of course, Ian was correct - and the research has increased sales, but the most significant findings are that data centres CAN reduce energy costs and improve reliability by installing a loadbank, alongside our wider understanding of fuel being the single point of failure and the impact of running on a low IT load.
“From a commercial point of view ongoing research has allowed the rebranding of our loadbank range with a focus to application- specific branding. From this sprang the GENSET loadbank range for permanently-
“In 2010 when the BBC’s new home at Media City in Salford needed load banks for IST commissioning, Hillstone was ideally placed to help.”
Paul
Smethurst, Hillstone
installed loadbanks used with generator systems.”
The important features within the GENSET loadbank range are the ability to allow auto- regulation of load when the genset is running and also to allow manual control during planned maintenance, which are both very important datacentre requirements. There is nothing new in warranty conditions for running a generator and it is not specific to datacentres to require the genset to run at load of at least 40%. So unless the datacentre has a permanent loadbank running on a genset to compensate for low IT load the facility will either breach the SLA or include a high premium for any additional maintenance and servicing, says Paul Smethurst.
hillstone-loadbanks.com 34 MARCH ‐ APRIL 2017 UK POWER NEWS
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