The Benefits of Implementing Substations for Data Centers
Data Center Frontier (Black & Veatch contributed article) · Katie Muer
A Black & Veatch article on the schedule, cost and reliability benefits of data centre owners building and operating their own high-voltage substations where allowed.
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Overview
This 2024 Black & Veatch contributed article by Katie Muer, published in Data Center Frontier, addresses data centre owners building and operating their own high-voltage substations where utilities and regulators allow it. It explains how self-build can shorten schedules and control cost when utilities are capacity- or capital-constrained.
The main schedule drivers are listed in the article: the utility interconnection agreement, equipment procurement, permits and site development. Some high-voltage equipment has 1-3 year procurement lead times, so identifying long-lead items early is important.
The technical comparison is made at a high level. Gas-insulated substations can cost up to three times an air-insulated design but need about a third of the space. The configurations considered are radial, main-tie-main, ring bus, breaker-and-a-half and double-bus double-breaker.
Reliability requires planned-outage management and redundant assets with no single points of failure, and the article stresses planning operations and maintenance and redundancy from day one. As a limitation, this is a sponsored consultancy article and offers no detailed sizing or cost data.
Key points
- Some high-voltage equipment has 1-3 year procurement lead times.
- Gas-insulated substations can cost up to three times an air-insulated design but need about a third of the space.
- Configurations considered: radial, main-tie-main, ring bus, breaker-and-a-half and double-bus double-breaker.
- Schedule is driven mainly by utility interconnection agreement, equipment procurement, permits and site development.
- Reliability requires planned-outage management and redundant assets with no single points of failure.
- Self-build can shorten schedules when utilities are capacity- or capital-constrained.
- Operations and maintenance and redundancy should be planned from day one.
Using it in design
- Offer a substation object with a configuration field (radial, main-tie-main, ring bus, breaker-and-a-half, double-bus double-breaker) and an insulation type field (AIS, GIS), with footprint and cost multipliers.
- Flag long-lead high-voltage equipment in the schedule output.
- Weigh the GIS versus AIS space and cost trade-off together with site selection.
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Who should read it
Electrical designers of large high-voltage-fed data centres and owners planning grid connections.
Related standards
- IEEE C37 series
Publication details
- Authors
- Katie Muer
- Publisher
- Data Center Frontier (Black & Veatch contributed article)
- Year
- 2024
- Document language
- English
- Source type
- Expert / community
- Access
- Free to read
- Licence
- Copyright retained; citation only — the publisher’s terms apply to the original document
Citation
Katie Muer (2024). The Benefits of Implementing Substations for Data Centers. Data Center Frontier (Black & Veatch contributed article). https://www.datacenterfrontier.com/sponsored/article/55180172/black-veatch-the-benefits-of-implementing-substations-for-data-centers
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