I just thought this might interest some of you. This article is another in the continuing saga of making the data center more efficient and/or less costly (competing goals, all too often).

http://www.infoworld.com/article/09/01/14/02TC-dc-power_1.html

You can also see comments posted on Slashdot here:

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/14/1852242

The concern I have with distributing DC power within a data center is that the PSU components of a computer are still needed. 12VDC-only computer board can be made (this was Google's plan) and won't need a separate PSU in the computer box. My idea would be to run 480/277 or 400/230 (depending on country of operation) directly to a power converter mounted in a 2U to 4U box in the middle of each rack cabinet. From there, 12VDC would go to each blade module in the rack. That power converter may even be combined with a short term battery backup (A UPS without the DC to AC conversion) to ride through short term interrupts in the internal distribution like 2-minute recabling.

I also expect 400VDC to be more expensive to protect than 480VAC, in part, due to the cost of the higher interruption capability needed for breakers.

Last edited by pdh; 01/14/09 07:16 PM. Reason: typo