News Release

August 26, 2016

Data Center Energy Conservation Demonstration Launches at The University of Texas at Austin
- Demonstration project of High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) feeding system -

NTT FACILITIES, INC. (NTTF) and New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) are collaborating with The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) to begin demonstration tests of a High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) feeding system*1 installed at the university to improve energy efficiency of the data center on August 25, 2016.
By introducing an energy-saving demonstration system combining high-capacity HVDC feeding system and a solar power system at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at UT Austin, the demonstration project aims to verify a predicted 15 percent energy savings compared to conventional systems.

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(From left) Munehiko Tsuchiya, Executive Director of NEDO; Atsushi Ichihoshi, President and CEO of NTT FACILITIES INC.; Dr. Daniel Jaffe, Vice President for Research of the University of Texas at Austin; and Dr. Dan Stanzione, Executive Director of TACC.

Besides the representatives of three project partners - NTTF, NEDO and UT Austin, Tetsuro Amano, Consul-General of Japan in Houston attended the ceremony.

Overview

In the past, NTTF have achieved the practical use of high capacity HVDC feeding system technology in NEDO project, called Green IT Project from 2008 to 2012.
And now, in this demonstration test, by linking the HVDC feeding system and solar power system, the number of the operating HVDC rectifier will be controlled based on the amount of energy generated from the solar power system, resulting in the HVDC feeding system optimization.
With regards to evaluating the efficiency of the energy conservation demonstration system, we will quantitatively analyze the performance of the new system compared to existing AC feeding systems by using DPPE (Data center Performance Per Energy)*2 to assess its advantages.
In the future, using the results of this demonstration as a foundation, NTTF plans to promote the expanded deployment of HVDC feeding systems as one solution to the problem of reducing data center power consumption focusing on the U.S. but also looking more broadly towards the European and Asian markets.

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Diagram of the energy conservation demonstration system installed at the University of Texas at Austin
HVDC feeding system
Solar power system

Reference: Glossary

*1High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) feeding system
A feeding system that improves the energy efficiency of an entire data center by reducing the number of times the electric current of the power supplied needs to be converted between AC and DC, which is necessary in the course of supplying power from external sources to internal ICT equipment. In this project, DC power at 380V will be delivered from the power equipment to ICT equipment.

*2DPPE(Data center Performance Per Energy)
A new metric used to indicate energy efficiency of an entire data center being promoted by Japan’s Green IT Promotion Council. The use of DPPE allows for the objective evaluation of the energy efficiency of an entire data center, including the ICT equipment it contains.


Address any inquiries on this matter to:
Attn: Public Relations Office, NTT FACILITIES, INC.; tel. +81-3-5444-5112

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