Systems engineering White Paper
Connecting the power train to the value chain from grid to chip Neil Potter Business Development Segment Team Lead, Data Centres - EMEA Eaton
Executive summary A data centre today looks very different to one just five years ago. And it’s all thanks to the effects of increasing demand on their evolving and expanding capacity, alongside regulatory drivers designed to deliver greater sustainability and efficiency. Accelerating globalisation and the presence of hyperscalers and large colos beyond the traditional hubs are now asking questions of us all. How can we evolve with data centres and support their growth? How can we alleviate their challenges and identify new ones now and into the future? And, critically, how can we do better than before? With this as the driving force for improvements, we must ask if the current way we design, implement and operate our data centres can meet these needs. Alternatively, we need to challenge ourselves to think in a transformational and evolutionary way. This paper explores turning traditional thinking on its head by taking a systems approach to data centres to support the demands of today and tomorrow.
Introduction It cannot be underestimated how rapid growth within data centre markets has been over recent years. This has been fuelled by the ever-increasing demands we place on the digital world and the need for business-critical functions to be resilient and reliable. While the focus is still on the main ‘FLAPD’ countries, we’re seeing many operators, including hyperscalers, colos and even enterprises, spreading their wings to emerging markets such as Turkey, Italy, Spain, Poland, Greece, Middle East and Africa. FIGURE 3: FLAPD market supply and utilisation, 2015-2022F (MW)
3,000 2,500 2,000 1,500 1,000 500 0
2015
2016
Supply Source: CBRE Research, Q3 2022
2017
2018
Supply Forecast
2019 Utilised
2020
2021
2022F
Utilised Forecast