Eaton EnergyAware Solution

Eaton’s EnergyAware solution enables data centers to contribute to renewable energy and earn from investments

• A new opportunity from data center power infrastructure

•  Instead of just demanding power, data centers can support the grid and be compensated for it. Eaton’s EnergyAware UPS is the first data center solution that lets organisations make money from their existing investment in a UPS by helping energy providers balance sustainable energy demands. Large data center operators, such as colocation and cloud service providers, can be compensated for immediate adjustments to power consumption that help the grid avoid power outages, without compromising critical loads.

• Earn from energy

• Eaton’s EnergyAware solution enables a data center to increase its competitiveness by turning its necessary investments into a revenue stream and using its UPS system to participate in frequency regulation.

Energy providers will compensate data center operators for abstaining from energy consumption when needed to maintain grid frequency. A UPS with Eaton’s UPS-as-a-Reserve technology (EnergyAware UPS) can be used to regulate demand via up and down stream charging and generate additional revenue as part of making the data center more competitive on price.

•  Increased revenue with typical returns up to €50,000 per MW of power allocated to grid support per year
•  Increased competitiveness from turning existing data center technology into a revenue generator
•  Control of energy capacity, timing and pricing in response to energy provider needs
•  Peace of mind as the UPS’s primary load protection functionality is unaffected by the service

• The solution puts data centers in control of their energy, choosing how much capacity to offer, when, and at what price.

Eaton will install and maintain the service, providing a communication interface with a commercial energy aggregator. It enables a data center to offer its capacity to the ‘national grid’ or Transmission System Operator.

• A greener data center solution

• Renewable energy is harder to predict and production can be more volatile – making it harder for energy providers to balance electricity supply.

As some of the world’s fastest growing energy consumers, data centers can play a significant role in the Frequency Containment Reserve (FCR) market. Data centers are able to support energy providers to maintain power quality by:

•  Reducing volatility in the power grid by using renewable energy
•  Balancing the power reserve in order to contribute to green energy
•  Helping energy producers to take hydro-power out of reserve and use it in energy production

• A unique solution:

•  Eaton has developed a unique solution in close collaboration with Fortum a leading energy provider in the Nordic and Baltic countries. 

•  Extensive testing between Eaton and Fortum has proven that the UPS can work as part of a virtual power plant to enable data centers to take part in the high-value FCR and demand-side market. 

•  The UPS can be used to regulate demand from the grid, as well as for up and down stream charging, to discharge the battery back to the grid.

• Eaton’s EnergyAware solution gives data center operators an opportunity to work with energy providers to momentarily reduce the power demands of the data center and even return power to the grid