Reseach White Paper on Microgrids for Datacenters.

Written By: Braham Singh

Version: 1

Dated: 02nd January 2025

Abstract: The increasing demand for sustainability and operational resilience in data
centers has led to a paradigm shift in their design. This paper presents a reimagined Tier 3
distributed redundancy configuration that eliminates diesel generators and instead leverages
renewable energy sources, energy storage systems, and advanced microgrid technologies. By
integrating the data center into a microgrid, this design achieves high availability, reliability,
and environmental stewardship.
The traditional Tier 3 data center design has relied heavily on diesel generators to
ensure backup power and redundancy. However, diesel gensets pose challenges related to
emissions, fuel logistics, and long-term sustainability. With advancements in microgrid
technology and the increasing adoption of renewable energy, data centers can now achieve
Tier 3 redundancy without diesel generators.
This paper explores how distributed renewable energy resources, battery energy
storage systems (BESS), fuel cells, and smart grid technologies can replace diesel generators
in a Tier 3 configuration, ensuring uninterrupted operation while minimizing environmental
impact. Going one step further, the paper also posits that such Distributed Energy Resources
(DERs) can also substitute the grid as the Primary Source of power for data centers. For large
MW data centers and data parks, gas turbine arrays still form an essenstial part of the DER
package at least until BESS prices drop further in line with the price drops seen with solar
panels and associated equipment.
In a traditional Tier 3 data center, redundancy is achieved through N+1 or 2N
configurations for critical systems. Diesel generators typically serve as the primary backup
during power outages, ensuring that the facility meets the 99.982% uptime requirement. Such
a design ensures that any single component failure does not disrupt operations. This paper
does away with diesel gensets and defines redundant paths in the microgrid’s DER based
power distribution network design to ensure that any single failure does not affect critical
systems