ANGS.OB - Transforming for Profits
If you were to go to the car dealers and shop for a new vehicle, somewhere along in the negotiations the question of fuel efficiency would arise. “What kind of mileage can I expect” sounds like a question that would surely be asked. Why? Because energy, especially as we have seen lately, is very expensive “stuff.” We need to conserve it as much as possible, both for the good of our planet and the good of our pocketbook. But sometimes energy is wasted through no fault of our own. Sometimes inefficiencies are built into the infrastructures that we rely on every day, although no one really notices it. Until they do the math.
Angstrom Microsystems Inc. (which trades under the symbol ANGS) knows where some of these inefficiencies lay when it comes to the electrical power infrastructure that enters into most computer data centers. Having built their business upon the engineering of high efficiency computing solutions, they have looked into the areas of energy loss that most people overlook. In fact, when presented with the facts, the average data center manager/owner is astounded by the energy drain of the typical power setup. For instance, the street power – power entering the datacenter from “the street” - is typically 3-phase 480V in the United States. Each stage that it passes through, including the very copper wire transmitting it, reduces its efficiency. Okay, we all expect a small drop in energy efficiency as the electricity passes along its route, but how bad can it be?
Very bad. When the power first enters the data center from the street, it typically heads into a “UPS,” or more commonly known as the “battery backup” area, which provides the power to the center in the event of a power failure. Even in the most modern UPS technology, there can be a loss of 2-10 percent on the energy supplied. From the 3 phase 480 volts, most data centers run the power through a PDU rectifier, taking the voltage down to 208V, which will eat anywhere from 7 to a whopping 25 percent of the input power in the transformation. Then the newly minted 208 volts of AC power goes into the individual server power supplies, and once again loses anywhere from 20 to 35 percent. Finally, just in the act of moving along the wiring, A/C current will often drop by another 2-5 percent.
Add it all together and the typical data center is paying for power that is seeing 35-50 percent wasted before it actually gets to the motherboards of its computers. This is a horrible waste of energy and money, and Angstrom has developed a unique way of putting an end to that waste, Angstrom’s solution is a high efficiency 480VAC 3-phase rectifier that converts those 480 volts of Alternating current, to 30 volts of DC current. That is then fed into a high efficiency DC distribution center that feeds the motherboards the required Direct current they require.
The savings are nothing shy of stunning. The company’s 3-phase rectifier and DC power supply combination average in at 84 percent efficiency, compared to the 50-percent the typical infrastructure is currently yielding. That’s a savings of 34 percent of the power invested, which at today’s prices can be tens of thousands of dollars to a standard data center.
With savings that large, it’s no wonder that Angstrom’s “MaxPowerSmart” solutions are in strong demand at data centers around the world. It’s just another reason that Angstrom is leading the way in progressive high efficiency computing solutions. Investors with an eye for “green” companies should keep an eye on this one.
