E.ON partners on local power generation solutions for data centres
Image: CyrusOne
E.ON has entered into a ‘preferred partnership’ with Texas-based CyrusOne to develop solutions to overcome data centres grid capacity constraints in Europe.
The focus of the partnership is on unlocking future energy projects in Frankfurt – Europe’s largest data centre hub, which is currently constrained by limited grid capacity and connection delays – and more widely across the continent.
Specifically the first initiative is intended to see E.ON Energy Infrastructure Solutions design a local power generation system, named E.ON IQ Energy Center, to supply CyrusOne’s FRA7 hyperscale data centre at the Frankfurt Westside campus in Griesheim, Germany.
In addition to local power generation solutions, the partnership proposes to collaborate on grid support, power purchase agreements and heat management as it seeks to offer near term capacity for customers in important availability zones in gateway markets with delayed access to grid capacity.
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“This partnership brings together two industry leading companies to accelerate a sustainable digital future, developing solutions that provide both power and cooling to the data centre and heat to the campus,” commented Marten Bunnemann, CEO at E.ON Energy Infrastructure Solutions.
“What sets this partnership apart is its strategic depth: a long-term alliance built on shared vision, technical integration and real benefits for customers and the wider community.”
Matthew Pullen, executive vice president and managing Ddirector, Europe at CyrusOne, a data centre owner and operator, adds that leveraging the complementary expertise of both companies to scale innovative technologies creates a unique opportunity to offer growth capacity for customers in their most important markets.
“Our scalable platform will set new industry standards for the integration of advanced energy solutions, offering a replicable model for future data centres and setting the pace for European innovation in sustainable infrastructure.”
The local power generation solution for the FRA7 data centre will supplement the existing power supply to deliver an additional 61MW of electrical output to the facility by 2029, expanding the campus to offer a further 45MW of IT capacity to customers and bringing the total IT capacity to 126MW.
The solution also is expected to become the first of its kind to include a baseload cooling integration via absorption chillers designed to convert exhaust heat from the power generation process into cooling for the data centre – the method designed to increase overall system efficiency, reduce power consumption and significantly improve the power usage effectiveness.
E.ON’s generation system is designed to produce power, cooling and heat through a combustion process that also qualifies CyrusOne to secure green certificates of origin.
Natural gas will initially be used to fuel the plant, but the system is designed to be hydrogen-ready and capable of operating with up to 25% hydrogen blended into the fuel mix, with the option to transition to 100% hydrogen through upgrades where demand exists.
The local power generation system is also engineered to significantly enhance the quality and usability of the data centre’s waste heat by integrating exhaust heat from its absorption chiller, raising the output temperature by approximately 10oC.
Supercapacitor storage to improve data centre efficiency
Another new solution that has emerged to address the growing energy demand of data centres – and AI data centres in particular – is the supercapacitor based GrapheneGPU from Skeleton Technologies.
The solution is intended to address the fluctuating demand of GPUs, which can cycle between 0% and 100% within seconds and is leading to AI data centres consuming up to twice the energy they require as they rely on ‘dummy loads’ during the idle phases to maintain a constant power draw.
GrapheneGPU with a proprietary curved graphene material combines peak-shaving supercapacitors with AI-driven control software to store energy during idle periods and release it during peak demand to smooth out the fluctuations.
This then eliminates the need for dummy loads, as well as reduces the cooling requirements and enables the GPUs to operate more efficiently.
According to Skeleton, the GrapheneGPU reduces AI energy consumption by up to 45% and lowers the power connection requirements by 44%, while boosting the computing performance in FLOPS by 40%.
