NTT Data Announces Japanese Green Data Center

June 26, 2008 — (GREEN DATA CENTER INFO) — NTT Data Corp (nttdata.co.jp) announced plans of building a green data center with a DC power system, which will be available for use starting in October, reported Tech-On this week.

The Japanese company unveiled this announcement at GridWorld 2008 (idg.co.jp/expo/grid/english/), which ran June 24-25 at Tokyo International Forum.

The DC power system is a technology utilized to minimize power loss by reducing the number of times of AC-DC/DC-AC conversion. Currently, uninterruptible power supply systems (UPS) used at data centers are driven by a direct current. AC-DC and DC-AC conversions are repeated for a minimum of three times, including conversion, inside the server machine before driving the microprocessor.

According to NTT Data, “approximately 10% of power is lost” each time an AC-DC conversion or other process is conducted. Utilizing a DC power system may reduce the power consumption by about 20 per cent, depending on the conversion efficiency and how many times DC-DC conversion is conducted to control the voltage.

“In Japan, power systems of 300V or higher is generally prohibited by law because they are considered hazardous to human bodies,” the company said. “It will take time to commercialize a high voltage DC power system because we need to tackle some issues including the improvement of relevant laws.”

Last week, Terremark also announced plans to open a green data center in Washington, DC.

Tags: green data center, GridWorld, NTT