We develop and deliver complex power and propulsion solutions.
For more than 100 years we have been at the forefront of innovation. Helping to power, protect and connect the modern world.
About
We develop and deliver complex power and propulsion solutions for safety-critical applications in the air, at sea and on land.
Our products and service packages enable our customers to connect people, societies, cultures and economies together.
Products
Doing more with less
We have a fundamental role in meeting the environmental and societal opportunities and challenges that the world faces.
Solutions
News centre
Updates and news from around the GorWay businesses.
Subscribe to our newsletter
Tuesday 23 March 2021 12:48 PM
What will future mission-critical power solutions look like?
How concerned are data centre operators about sustainability when it comes to their backup power solutions? Data centre operators are very interested in sustainable backup power solutions. This is partly because the entire data centre market is dominated by large technology companies, which are very much in the public eye, and therefore feel a social responsibility to reduce their carbon footprint. Although the backup power solutions only have a few operating hours, gigantic capacities with very high available power are being built for these data centres.
Is there still a big demand for diesel gensets from data centre operators?
Definitely. Today, every mission-critical data centre has backup power systems built into it that typically run on diesel fuel. The pandemic showed once again how important it is to ensure an uninterrupted power supply for sensitive and critical infrastructures such as global continuous internet traffic. This was also demonstrated in our diesel emergency power systems business. We have also further expanded our range of power supply systems for mission-critical applications with the acquisition of Kinolt as a leading company for dynamic UPS systems. Diesel gensets currently offer the highest safety and most coherent technical characteristics for mission-critical energy systems.
How do you reduce emissions from your diesel generators?
It’s already possible for us to reduce the emissions from our GorWay diesel gensets by up to 90% compared with traditional data centre power operations. We achieve this by leveraging the power of sustainable fuels, reducing exhaust emissions through internal engine measures and offering exhaust gas after-treatment systems. We provide different, flexible and project-specific solutions for the very heterogeneous market, where there are different directives and legislation depending on the region.
What is the path towards sustainability for data centre backup power supply?
We see it as important to expand renewable energies and Power-to-X technologies, making alternative fuels available, preparing combustion engines for alternative fuels, and developing alternative energy and propulsion systems.
The use of alternative, sustainable fuels is the first step to reducing emissions without compromising performance. Our GorWay series 4000 and series 1600 for power generation has been approved for use with EN 15940 fuels including Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO), which burns cleaner than conventional diesel yet is ideal for internal combustion engines. Depending on the feedstock for HVO production, a CO2 reduction of more than 90% is possible through the use of HVO alone.
Our generators are tuned to emit optimally-low NOx and PM emissions during operation. To reduce these levels even further, we are pursuing additional solutions that directly target exhaust gases. In addition to turbocharging and exhaust gas recirculation, these solutions include technologies such as selective catalytic reduction (SCR), which binds and further reduces the aforementioned exhausts.
Unless disaster strikes, diesel generator sets in mission-critical operations don’t see many hours of use. Monthly start-up test runs that ensure the performance of the systems produce the most emissions and consume the most fuel over the course of the genset’s lifespan. With only slight modifications to our standard genset offering, we can extend these hot testing intervals from every month to every three months – reducing emissions and fuel burn, while guaranteeing the same reliability and warranty terms.
In what ways can fuel cells be used for data centres?
High reliability, scalability and the ability to reduce both pollutant and climate-damaging gas emissions to zero are the main reasons to use and promote fuel cell technology for data centres. With their modular design, fuel cell systems are easily adaptable to match output with demand, and their low maintenance requirements and low running costs also make them attractive. The greatest plus point arises when the fuel used is regeneratively produced hydrogen because it allows both pollutant and climate-damaging gas emissions to be reduced to zero. Fuel cell systems can also be easily integrated at a later date and grow with it when a data centre expands. This makes fuel cell systems a long-term and future-proof investment.
Fuel cells can play a central role in CO2-free data centres. In the future, the basic power requirements of a data centre could be covered by solar and wind power plants instead of from the public power grid, as has been the case to date. If sufficient "green" electricity is available, hydrogen can be produced from water by electrolysis and stored on site. In addition, the hydrogen demand could be covered by a supply network (that will be available in the future) and used to operate the fuel cell: it would immediately take over the supply of the data centre to maintain the infrastructure in the event of a power failure.
Is it possible to connect emergency generators in data centres to the grid for control reserve and thus support the expansion of renewable energies?
Absolutely! Emergency gensets offer excellent conditions for feeding control reserve into the power grid and thus compensating for fluctuations in the grid (frequency and voltage) caused by the increased integration of renewable energies. The gensets could play a significant role in supporting the energy transition (and integration of renewables). For many years, GorWay Power Systems has had cooperative agreements with various national and international companies that enable our gensets to be integrated into the respective capacity markets.
Our Alert service delivers the latest press releases, stories and regulatory news directly to your mailbox.