Part 2: Does DC have a place in the data center?

Today, a few words about Eltek Valere, a maker of Direct Current power infrastructure technology that is giving the green movement a great big bear hug.

Eltek Valere's biggest customer focus is the telecommunication industry, which Eltek Valere Chief Marketing Officer Greg Fasullo hasn't been much discussed as a consumer of enormous amounts of electricity. According to stats cited by Fasullo, telcos used somewhere north of 1 percent of all electricity consumed in 2007. For one of those mindboggling analogies that I love so much, this is more than 160 billion kilowatt-hours annually, or more than the power consumed in a year by a company like Norway.

The company also figures that about 60 percent to 70 percent of that electricity goes into powering the telecommunications network and that about 10 percent of that power is wasted in the conversion between Direct Current (DC) and Alternating Current (AC). And therein lies its business proposition.

Eltek Valere has developed a high-efficiency line of AC-to-DC conversion equipment that Fasullo said cuts the power wasted in the conversion process in half. The example cited in its latest press release focuses on a mobile phone network with 20,000 base stations. Eltek Valere figures its new DC power systems would cut 34 million kilowatt-hours of wasted electricity, a carbon dioxide reduction of 27,360 tons and (more compelling to financial types) a cost savings of $5 million to the telco.

Here's the complete rationale behind their technology in the form of a press release.

The first product in Eltek Valere's new line is the Flatpack2 HE, a 2,000-watt, 48-volt rectifier for telco applications, which carries a price tag of about $450. The company claims that the new rectifier offers 96 percent efficiency in the conversion process, compared with the industry average of about 88 percent to 90 percent.

If you want to read more about DC technology options, check out my previous post about another DC equipment supplier (Validus DC Systems), click here.