Eaton & Siemens Energy Partner in AI Data Centre Capacity

Intelligent power management company Eaton is partnering with Siemens Energy, an established technology leader, to build data centres with integrated onsite power.

Announced today, the partnership hopes to address urgent market needs by offering reliable energy supplies that are independent from the grid, in addition to standardised modular systems to facilitate faster data centre construction and deployment.

Both companies hope the collaboration will enable simultaneous construction of data centres and associated on-site power generation, with grid connection and the integration of renewables to meet potential regional regulatory requirements.

This hopes to offer data centre owners and developers more options as they seek to build and run new data centres. 

“Our approach of letting customers pick the right balance of energy sources is very flexible and construction to start-up time is swift with options to reduce emissions in both the short and long term,” explains Cyrille Brisson, Global Segment Leader, Data Centres at Eaton.

Modular design to speed up data centre construction

Siemens Energy has a modular power plant concept designed to scale, as it is tailored to the specific needs of data centre operators. 

The company says its standard configuration generates 500 megawatts (MW) of electricity featuring highly efficient SGT-800 gas turbines, redundancy and additional battery storage systems. This is to ensure the highest reliability.

Given the modular approach to the design, the size of the planet can be scaled up and down and moving forward, it could also be carbon-neutral – provided hydrogen isn’t part of the individual data centre’s sustainability strategy.

The Siemens Energy concept also includes an optional emission-free clean air grid connection to be installed either during construction or as a retrofit. This feature would enable data centres to provide grid services.

“We offer hyperscalers, co-locators and investors a unique package, enabling them to reduce the time-to-market by up to two years in many places which leads to significant revenue gains,” says Andreas Pistauer, Global Head of Sales at Siemens Energy’s Gas Services Business Area. “Our power plant design is built with redundancy, eliminating the need for backup diesel generators, and reducing CO2 emissions by about 50 percent.”

Bringing data centres online faster – but sustainably

Modular data centre development is becoming increasingly popular across the industry, particularly as AI and cloud technologies continue to place power and energy pressures on operators. 

This type of development can maximise energy efficiency and enable rapid deployment, whilst also delivering high computing power at a low power usage effectiveness (PUE) level.

With this in mind, Eaton will provide customers with electrical equipment, which includes medium voltage switchgear, low voltage switchgear, UPS, busways, structural support, racks and containment systems.

It will also offer the engineering services and software offerings needed to protect and enable IT loads from the medium-voltage grid to the chip, in addition to helping accelerate building and commissioning data centres with skidded and modular designs.

 Cyrille adds: “Crucially, our approach offers data centre owners and developers the opportunity to build capacity and bring it online fast in any location where they have land available that is close to gas, water and fibre.” 

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