back to article Dyin'... for some li-ion, from Taiwan? Electronics powerhouse spewing out data centre cells

The country-sized electronics factory that is Taiwan has ramped up its production of li-ion cells designed specifically for data centre applications to meet growing demand from American cloud vendors. According to Digitimes, large battery suppliers like Simplo Technology, Dynapack International Technology and Celxpert Energy …

  1. J. R. Hartley

    Bob Marley

    This is why I love the reg

  2. Christian Berger

    Is that a smart idea?

    I mean the big advantage of lithium ion batteries is their high energy density. Essentially you can get lots of what hours per kilogram. However that's not really an advantage in a data centre, as those usually aren't restricted by weight.

    Additionally lead acid batteries don't mind being stored at full capacity as much as lithium ion batteries. Those degrade quickly when held at a full charge constantly. (optimum storage charge is around 60-70%)

    In fact the high energy density might even be a problem in case of emergencies. Imagine a fire breaking out. While this is no pleasant situation in any battery room, having your batteries made out of a material that heavily reacts with water might be an additional problem.

    However there might be other uses, like buying cheap electricity and using it when it's more expensive. That might be an advantage in the data centre. However that's not what we currently use batteries for in the data centre.

    1. deive

      Re: Is that a smart idea?

      Hmmm, li-ion does seem a little wasteful, but in the same way as lead-acid. They are lighter, yeah, but they have less "memory" effects.

      However what would be wrong with a physical battery (e.g. just pumping some water to the roof), or a flow battery? A data-centre has lots of space and doesn't move...

      1. Allan George Dyer
        Boffin

        Re: Is that a smart idea?

        @dieve - "(e.g. just pumping some water to the roof)"

        That depends on how high and strong your roof is. If you have a 7kW rack that you want 15 minutes of emergency power for, then that's 6.3MJ. You would need to raise 1 tonne of water 630 metres to store that.

        You could design in a saltwater crater lake for your volcano lair, but I don't know what you'd do with the sharks when there's a power outage.

    2. rcxb Silver badge

      Re: Is that a smart idea?

      The increased energy-density of Li-Ion per-volume is probably the key issue. I know that's the selling point in UPSes... Give your UPS 3X the run-time in the same footprint for an only slightly exorbitant amount of extra cash.

      On that metric, Ni-MH is almost as good as Li-Ion, and VASTLY safer and longer-lasting than either Li-Ion or lead-acid. But I suppose economies of scale are pushing Li-Ion prices down faster than Ni-MH.

      Plus, Li-Ion can also be safely discharged at a higher rate, so if you only want 3 minutes of runtime from a relatively tiny bank of batteries (although shortening the lifetime), Li-Ion is a better way to go.

    3. hmv

      Re: Is that a smart idea?

      I don't believe that any metal Lithium is found in Li-ion batteries; indeed one proposed method for dealing with electric car fires is to submerse the entire car in water. Not that significantly changing the material composition of a DC isn't grounds for doing a full safety review.

      1. phuzz Silver badge

        Re: Is that a smart idea?

        "one proposed method for dealing with electric car fires is to submerse the entire car in water"

        Just like this

  3. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

    Why not primary cells?

    Telcos have been using racks with primary cells as per-shelf backup for a long time. If this is just for medium-term power-outage protection, primary cells can have higher energy density and they have very low self-discharge rates. They just need to be changed out every few years, and can be fairly easily recycled, with no need to provide recharging infrastructure. Is that a viable option here?

    1. Christian Berger

      Re: Why not primary cells?

      Discharge rates are not the problem. The big question is, how do you test primary cells? I mean sure you can look at their voltage, but something like a load test, which you should do regularly on those systems, is very hard to do.

  4. Duncan Macdonald
    Flame

    Fire Risk ?

    I hope that any firm planning to use Li-ion in a large scale in a data centre seeks advice from the local fire service first (and checks to see if they can get fire insurance). Li-ion batteries that catch fire are capable of continuing burning in CO2 (like any other firework!!!). At the very least if local (per rack) Li-ion UPS systems are in use then they should be in staggered positions (bottom, top, bottom etc) so that one catching fire does not automatically ignite adjacent units.

    Icon for the fires =>

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Batteries mounted in the servers?

    So servers will become big hot noisy laptops?

    1. phuzz Silver badge
      Gimp

      Re: Batteries mounted in the servers?

      When Windows Server knows it's plugged into a UPS, it uses the exact same icons and behaviour as a Windows laptop.

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