Guest Bio
Jesper Therbo is the Global Director of HVAC and Refrigeration at Danfoss. Therbo has been in the HVACR industry for 27 years, the last 11 of which have been with Danfoss. He holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Haslev Teknikum in Haslev, Denmark.
Episode Summary
Jesper Therbo, global director of HVAC and refrigeration at Danfoss, joins John Sheff, Danfoss’ former director of public and industry affairs, to discuss how the new DCGuard can protect DC grids by minimizing power losses.
Main Points
- There were 4.2 billion active users on social media in 2021. Adding virtual meetings, working from home, and our demand for accessing data is greater than ever and growing.
- The number and size of data centers is increasing; by 2030, data centers are expected to consume about 8% of global electricity per year.
- Approximately 50% of the power supplied to data centers is lost in AC to DC conversions.
- DC systems have fewer components, are easier to install and reduce risk of errors. They also are more reliable and eliminate issues with unwanted harmonic waves and harmonic distortion.
- But availability of DC components is limited and short circuit protection is a concern. Limited short circuit energy requires more sophisticated protection devices, which is even more of a challenge when there are several inverters connected to the same DC bus.
- The protection fuses burn but often so do the fuses feeding other vital equipment in the same system.
- One way to improve total selectivity in a common DC bus system is to split the system into two separate DC grids using a fast current cutter or DC bus tie device.
- Danfoss Drives has developed a new fast current cutter DC bus tie device, the VACON NXP DCGuard™.
- This device maintains the safety and stability of DC grid systems by providing short circuit protection, detecting and cutting off any fall in DC current within 50 microseconds. It ensures the healthy side of the grid can continue to operate as normal after the short circuit.
- DCGuard is a key enabler for the use of DC grids in many applications, including data centers, commercial buildings, and factories. Redundancy is essential in data centers to prevent them from going offline.
- Danfoss’ VACON NXP hardware is equipped with diodes connected in parallel to the IGBTs. The diode will protect the IGBT against damage and at the same time allow reverse energy to return to the DC link capacitors.
- All currents passing through the VACON NXP DCGuard will also pass through a serial disconnected inductance and this inductance will limit the current rise time.
- Harvesting the advantages of using distributed DC power supply in data centers, apart from a 10-fold reliability enhancement, can offer a 10% boost in supply-to-server efficiency. It can reduce infrastructure and lower investment cost by around 15% and bring down the amount of space required inside the data center by around 25%, meaning more floor space for server racks and for highly efficient cooling solutions to help meet aspirations for green and sustainable data centers.
Links
Learn more about the use of DC power in data centers
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For more information and additional episodes of the EnVisioneering Exchange podcast, visit https://www.danfoss.com/en-us/about-danfoss/insights-for-tomorrow/envisioneering-exchange/
