Video: Data Cave Installs 2MW Generator

Data Cave is a new 84,000 square foot data center being built in Columbus, Indiana. The Data Cave team has chronicled much of the construction process on the company blog, with regular updates and photos showing various phases of construction. A recent post details the arrival of a new 2 megawatt generator, and was accompanied by a video showing the delivery and installation of the 3,000 gallon diesel fuel tank and the 60,000 pound generator. This video runs about 6 minutes.

See our Generators Channel for more information about diesel generators. For additional video, check out our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube.

Cummins Hikes Prices on Diesel Generators

The price of diesel generators from Cummins Power Generation (CMI) is going up. Cummins said today that it will raise prices by 2 to 7 percent on commercial generator set products between 15 kW and 2700 kW as of Jan. 1, 2009. The company cited “rising commodity and fuel prices as well as the consequence of the current industry dynamics.”

The data center building boom has created backlogs for the large generators that provide emergency backup power, with some facility operators reporting lengthy delays on new units of the most popular 2 megawatt models. With its core market of truck sales lagging, Cummins has benefited from record sales of generators, supported by strong demand from the data center sector.

Securing Diesel Delivery in Disasters

If a major disaster leaves you without utility power for days, will you be able to get refills of diesel fuel for your generators?  Digital Realty Trust isn’t taking any chances. The company has signed an exclusive agreement with Foster Fuels to provide  emergency fuel delivery for generators at any of Digital Realty Trust’s Turn-Key data center facilities in the U.S.

Digital Realty, which is the world’s largest landlord of data center facilities, said the new service was “unique in the data center industry” and will ensure that its customers can keep their facilities online even during lengthy utility outages.

The scenario is not without precedent. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York, the Telehouse carrier hotel facility at 25 Broadway experienced diesel fuel shortages and generator problems that left its customers offline for more than two days. In the 2005 aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans colocation provider Zipa had to scramble to find diesel fuel at a time when the city was without power.

Digital Realty Trust (DLR) is seeking to address those type of worst-case scenarios with the agreement with Foster Fuels, which allows Digital’s Turn-Key Datacenter customers to obtain emergency fuel emergency fuel within 24 hours.

Installing a 2.25 Megawatt Diesel Generator

How do you get a 38,000 pound generator into a sub-basement beneath the streets of a major city? Minnesota hosting provider VISI has posted video of the June 21 installation of a new Caterpillar 2.25MW diesel generator for its St. Paul data center. The process involved closing the streets, lifting out a chunk of the roadway to expose the basement, and using a 175-ton crane to lift the equipment into the opening. Watch the video below, and then check out Gary Elfert’s entry at the VISI blog for additional details.

Check out our Generator Channel for more articles about diesel generators. For additional video, see our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube.

Diesel Price Hikes an Issue for Generators

The cost of diesel fuel is soaring, vexing US truckers and motorists overseas, where diesel passenger cars are more popular. But the spike in diesel fuel prices also will make it more expensive for data center operators to support the banks of diesel generators that provide emergency backup power for their facilities. Here’s a chart from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, mapping the trend in retail diesel fuel prices over the past several years:

Diesel is now more expensive than gasoline at the pump, costing up approximately $4.50 a gallon. The EIA chart includes prices through May 14, and thus doesn’t reflect the most recent market pricing as oil has surged as high as $135 per barrel.

The largest data centers store an enormous amount of diesel fuel so that they can run their generators for an extended period of time in the event of a prolonged grid failure. An example is DuPont Fabros Technology’s ACC4 facility in Ashburn, Virginia, which serves customers including MySpace and Facebook. ACC4 is backed by 32 huge 2.25 megawatt diesel generators, and the building has four 50,000 gallon tanks of diesel fuel for a total of 200,000 gallons of storage, enough to run the facility on generator power for up to 55 hours during a grid outage. Google (GOOG) has outfitted its Council Bluffs, Iowa data center to use as many as 38 generators, which could also require a huge reservoir of diesel fuel.

Many huge data centers are likely paying wholesale rather than retail costs, but the pricing trend appears to span both markets. Large diesel users can buy futures contracts to lock in prices for bulk purchases. That’s what the city of Houston did, allowing it to pay just $1.83 a gallon for low sulfur diesel fuel through the end of September - and the price will revert to market rates of more than $4 dollars per gallon.

Generator Sales Remain Strong for Cummins

Cummins (CMI) said strong sales of diesel generators in overseas markets boosted its fourth-quarter profit by 5 percent. Sales in Cummins’ Global Power Generation unit surged 28 percent in the fourth quarter to $840 million, driven by strong gains “around most of the world” and significant growth in alternator sales in Europe and China.
The company said its power segment saw strong sales gains in virtually every line of business, led by a 31 percent increase in commercial sales and a 34 percent rise in alternator sales.

With its core market of truck sales lagging, Cummins has benefited from record sales of generators, supported by strong demand from the data center sector.

Utility Hacks Tied To Foreign Power Outages

The security of generators and electric utility systems has been vigorously debated in recent months following the release of a video from the Department of Homeland Security showing a diesel generator being disabled by an electronic attack. The utility hacking issue is back in the news after the CIA told the SANS Institute that attacks have caused power blackouts in other countries.

“We have information, from multiple regions outside the United States, of cyber intrusions into utilities, followed by extortion demands,” the CIA spokesman said at a SANS workshop on industrial security. “We suspect, but cannot confirm, that some of these attackers had the benefit of inside knowledge. We have information that cyber attacks have been used to disrupt power equipment in several regions outside the United States. In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities. We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet.”

i/o Data Centers Lines Up Generators

i/o Data Centers said today that it has reached an agreement with Empire Power Systems, the Caterpillar distributor for Arizona and Southeast California to ensure that it will have backup power for the build-out of its data centers. That will include 16 megawatts of backup power for i/o Data Centers’ Scottsdale ONE facility, all supplied by Caterpillar.

“The Caterpillar name implies quality,” said Tony Wanger, Senior Managing Director of i/o Data Centers. “Cat has a reputation as being a premium product in this market, and that matches up well with our desire to create a high level of confidence in our ability to host our client’s most important information. In the arrangement with Empire, we get the highest quality of product and we also have access to the capabilities of a very large Caterpillar distributor.”

Strong demand for diesel generators from data center builders and growing economies in China and India have contributed to a delivery backlog for large generators, with backlogs approaching a year for some larger models. Many new data centers are arranging for large volumes of power, which places additional pressure on manufacturing capacity. DuPont Fabros has 32 generators at its new facility in Ashburn, Virginia, while Google has received permits for up to 38 generators for its new data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa. With that level of demand, procuring generators becomes a key element of the data center construction timetable.