Power Quality

Robert Cringely has made an impact with his latest piece from the PBS bully-tech pulpit. (catch it here http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20051020.html and also the tech.memeorandum coverage here)

I design reliable power systems and data centers for a living.

In general terms, you don't need 3 to 4 times more electricity for cooling a data center than you need to power the electronic loads. The rough rule of thumb is 1 to 1. That means 1 watt of connected data center load will need 1 watt of electricity for connected mechanical loads. A watt of electricity does not automatically become a watt of heat; some of that electricity is converted to light and motion. Cringely overstates the actual (as opposed to the name-plate rated value) power consumption of the drive arrays by at least double. He also gets muddled up when he discusses data center floor space; mixing up total square footage with the square footage of the connected load space. He uses an incorrect approach to calculating "necessary" space to support "equipment" space. He makes some incorrect assumptions about the types of drives used in many of the arrays. The Cringely argument also completely overlooks load diversity in a data center. Even if 6,500 square feet required 330 Watts per square foot, the total equipment foot print over the remainder of the space would have a much lower density on average. We refer to stacked racks of blade servers and drive arrays as "spot" loads. You don't need to provision the entire facility at the load density of its densest loads; what you do have to do is provide the flexibility to power those loads in a range of locations and to provide appropriate cooling for installation conditions. It is true that load densities are starting to increase over the norms of the last few years, however.

It's worth noting that Cringely is treading down a path we've been on before and the evidence regarding actual data center electricity utilization demonstrates different usage patterns than what was predicted.

If you're interested in discussing data center electricity usage and design with me Robert, then call me at my Calgary office at (403) 541-6475 (Updated: 2006/12/10)

I'll be in Vancouver from Feb. 20 to 22 and in Edmonton on Feb 23 and 24. I'm hoping to meet the dons at Bryght (Boris, Roland et. al.) and possibly have a few talks with other blogging and podcasting gurus. My travel is for the Uninterruptible Power Supply Forum that I will be chairing in each of the 2 cities. I'll be training for you IT, infrastructure and electrical geeks who have an interest in big iron UPS's. There's still time to register and so far it looks like I'm meeting at least 20 of you in each city. On Feb. 28 and Mar. 1 we'll do it for everyone in Toronto.

If you have visited the site you will have noticed that I have finally put up a "custom" Drupal theme. It's not brain surgery; and hopefully many others will get their theme-thinking caps on and banish "bluemarine" and "pushbutton" forever.

A bunch of stuff today in no particular order processed from 3 days at a conference in Chicago and a 7 hour trip from Windy back to Toronto (isn't flying convenient?... total time in the air about 80 minutes).

On to podcasting and technology. I asked my audience at the PQ conference whether any of them had heard of podcasting. Bear in mind these are mostly electrical engineers and technicians -- ie: people with real jobs. Not one of them knew what I was talking about. Now they know. My point in bringing it up is that in the field of engineering data management, we are not paying attention to what is happening in the wider internet space; the so-called Internet 2.0. Developments in data transport, web services and standards in reporting are changing enormously in other fields but not so much in the electrical and power quality universe. That is changing slowly and new standards at the IEC and IEEE are being discussed. Standards are only part of the solution. The other part is getting geek engineers to feel cool about themselves again. The biggest problem I see is that electrical engineering in the US is under attack from market forces. The U.S. is losing its technical edge and beginning to treat engineering like a commodity. I wish the son could learn from his Dad and remember the whole "thousand points of light" thing. Let innovation flourish and the rest takes care of itself. If we get a few more real geeksters from the electrical engineering world podcasting and blogging then the conversation is going to get really interesting.

Speaking of which, I finally met Jude Russell the only other power quality engineer blogger that I am aware of. Jude runs Power Lines in Newington, Connecticut and blogs semi-regularly. We talked about data aggregation and presenting reports to customers. It's a big problem and we're all using our own tool-sets, tricks and accumulated experience to distill the data down to useful chunks of information.

On the subject of the PQ Conference; an inspired track was the 90 minute session with past John Mungenast Award winners on Thursday morning. I have some interesting take-aways from the session that are not just focused on power quality. More on that later, I haven't downloaded my notes from the Axim yet.

Standing here on the Golden Mile you can look either way and get a sense of endless possibilities. Chicago is an urban power house filled with small town Americans. It is a city of robust retail might, diverse manufacturing and financial muscle. Chicago is a transportation colossus; a trans-shipment mecca for people and goods. In the midst of all this Chicago has an art and architecture that is part Frank Lloyd Wright, part George Gershwin and part Jackson Pollock. The extremes are on display, no doubt, but somehow the corners are all rounded. From the buildings to the people this is a metropolitan city of unmatched purpose.

I'm here until Thursday for Power Systems World and, specifically, the Power Quality Conference, where I will have a presentation on Thursday morning. The power quality business has been taking a beating in North America since Y2K and we are all here looking for business answers, process fixes, product mixes and perfect combinations with other complimentary electrical system products and services. What I see is more of the same on the show floor, but from some of my advance scanning of the papers there are some interesting things going on out there that many of the product leaders have not picked up on yet. More to come.

Steve Thomas from the University of Greenwich presented his report to the
Society of Energy Professionals today. Its contents are discussed in the Globe and Mail -- "Flaws seen in Ontario plan to reorganize hydro". Mr. Thomas was also interviewed by CBC's "As it Happens". The response to the paper? He can be safely quoted as saying, "they were defensive". 
No surprise there. The Society is composed of people who run the generation, transmission and distribution system. Many of them never
wanted what has befallen the system. Many of them are not responsible for the structural changes that have occurred.

Where are we with electricity and where are we going? The average consumer wants on-demand, cheap, reliable electrical energy. We are
heading towards something that will be subject to inavailability, cost considerably more and suffer from systemically poor power quality.

I drank my morning coffee and said a silent thank you to William
Thorsell, former publisher of the Globe and Mail, for his op-ed piece
entitled Burn, baby, burn: Why we're back to nuclear power. Loaded with money
quotes, Thorsell suveys the energy field in short order and arrives at
the conclusion held by many in the electrical and energy business. If
you want massive, scalable energy self-sufficiency you have to think
nuclear. Or newqyoular if you prefer.

The essay is short, to the point and full of honest to goodness truths,
rather than half-baked, highschool science class hopes. Thorsell is
unequivocal in voicing not just contempt; but also, complete
bewilderment regarding the public process behind the issue of nuclear
waste:

Regarding a continued reliance on fossil fuels for electricity
generation, he points out:

Some point out that increasing our nuclear reliance increases the possibility
for terrorism and the proliferation of destructive nuke technologies;
but that genie is already out of the bottle and as Thorsell states:

What is the emergency
plan for 30 days without any home heating or water in Toronto in January if the power goes down because of a distribution failure? Maybe there just can't be one, given the certainty of chaos, so a dependable supply of electricity is the closest equation there is these days to peace, order and good government. Lose electricity and we lose the social
order."

Thorsell saves the best for last. No
politician would dare say it but his statement rings truer than any of
the rhetorical crap that has been spouted by any party in any election
of note lately:

"Medicare
gets all the political attention, while the much more
fundamental question of our energy supplies and systems percolates
off-stage. The first duty of the state is the security of the citizen,
not the care of the ill. We got a glimpse of that last August."

One of the things that I do in order to earn a living is related to electrical system reliability
and power quality. This past week has featured a couple of high
profile stories regarding electrical infrastructure failure; one in
Athens
and one in Chicago.

I passed through the American terminal at O'Hare in April and it was
very clearly under-construction at the time. So in some respect the
likelihood of an accident was bound to increase. Reading the original
news dispatches it seemed clear to me that it was unlikely that a
transformer actually exploded in-service in the building; it sounded
more like a cable fault to me. It was reported that workers
inadvertently "moved wires". An updated story does identify that a
cable fault occurred, but that is not how it is referred to. Instead,
they call it a "flash":

I have no personal or first-hand knowledge to relate regarding the
Chicago event, however I can offer the following general professional
observations.



In my experience, a dead shorted cable
packing a few hundred amps does indeed give off quite a
flash and it can be lethal. The loud sound associated with a short circuited
cable is a combination of two things; the sonic component of the EMI
arc (think of it as being the "thunder" part of a mini lightning
strike)  and either (or both) of the operation of  circuit
breakers or fuses opening up to clear the fault. When large fuses blow
they can be really loud.



The pressing question for a forensic engineer on site now would be,
"Why did the cable fault occur?".

I received a note from Alex McEachern -- one of the godfathers of power quality -- about his latest seminar offering; this time in Boston. Alex has an extensive CV that is easily matched by his story-telling capabilities. Even if you don't know anything about electric power, it's always interesting just listening to him.

Alex is a gentle soul. When we were presenting in the same conference stream on the opening day of the 2000 PQ Conference in Boston, I nervously started off by mentioning a 1999 article in Forbes about the effects of electronic loads and power quality on the electrical grid. I wanted it to be a topical ice breaker before launching into my paper. After my presentation, Alex started his segment by firmly, but politely refuting the references in the Forbes story. He wanted to assure everyone that the article's suppositions were wrong. I felt rather chastened having learned at the feet of the master. He was not trying to find fault with me personally, he just wanted to make sure the issue was presented with all of the available evidence.

Alex was right; the article was typical of the type of bubble hyperbole that existed at the time. Within a year we were both at a much smaller PQ show in Chicago, where Alex received a John Mungenast Power Quality Award, on September 11th, no less. If you're in the electrical design business, be it semiconductor based or not, a day spent with Alex is well worth your money. His company is called Power Standards Lab.