Amazon plans to use Tesla batteries in its data center

Amazon has announced that Tesla batteries will be installed in a data center serving Amazon Web Services. In this case we are talking about the western region of the United States. In DC, Amazon will install a Tesla battery system at 4.8 mWh.

Previously, Amazon announced its intention to switch to 100% energy supply from renewable sources, including solar, wind and other types of "green" energy. Using Tesla batteries is part of an overall plan for this project.

The Tesla system is based on batteries that are used in Tesla electric cars. In this case, the battery system includes the batteries themselves, an electronic control system, a temperature control system, and other subsystems. Recall that such a system (for enterprises) is called Powerpack. This system can be scaled, and even work in a large enterprise. Thus, 100 kW units can be combined into a system from 500 kW to 10 MW and above ...
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According to one of the leaders of AWS, the battery is not the only element that is necessary for reliable operation of the “green” data center. However, the high capacity of such a system allows you to store substantial amounts of energy derived from the sun, wind and other sources. At the same time, in the dark (subject to the use of solar batteries), the stored energy can be used without problems by supplying the equipment with electricity.



During the year, developers from Amazon worked closely with the Tesla team of engineers in order to get a system suitable for installation in their data center. In addition, the developers have created a number of necessary software for managing such a system in the DC.

The batteries, according to the plan, will be installed before the data center switches to 100% "green" energy. The fact is that Tesla battery systems allow you to accumulate energy at a time when the kW is the most inexpensive, so that you can use the accumulated electricity in “expensive” time. In addition, the batteries will help the company to get rid of possible problems in peak modes of energy consumption.

By the way, not so long ago, Amazon opened a "cloudy" DC in Frankfurt, Germany. This data center, according to the authors of the project, does not affect the increase in carbon dioxide emissions into the environment. One can argue with this, but the developers have tried to do everything to achieve a zero contribution of the DC to CO2 emissions in the region.

In April, the company joined the American Council on Renewable Energy, and also announced participation in the US PREF (US Partnership for Renewable Energy Finance), to ensure interaction with local authorities on the use of renewable energy for cloud providers.



Amazon claims that in its "cloudy" DC, the company (optimized in a special way) consumes about 1/8 of the energy consumed by similar equipment in terms of performance of conventional data centers (server blades, etc.). In January, Amazon merged with Pattern Development to participate in a project to create a 150 MW wind farm in Indiana. This object is called Amazon Wind Farm (Fowler Ridge). From January 2016, this station will begin producing 500,000 MWh of energy. In this case, Tesla batteries can be used as efficiently as possible, ensuring that energy is accumulated when it is abundant, and recovered, at a time when the station is not operating at full capacity.

Soon, these batteries can be used on other Amazon sites.