CtrlS installs Asia’s largest gas insulated substation at its Mumbai data centre facilities
Digital Edge Bureau 13 Jan, 2022 0 comment(s)CtrlS, one of the largest data centre service providers, has deployed Asia’s largest Gas Insulated Substation (GIS) in its Mumbai facilities – which is uniquely poised to be a game changer in the Indian data center industry. With GIS technology, the clearance needed for phase to phase or phase to ground for all equipment is much less than that of an AIS or air insulated substation. The total space required for a GIS is roughly 10 percent of that needed for a conventional AIS facility
The state-of-the-art GIS is currently equipped with 300MW, which can be scaled up to 700MW and backed by three different sources and diversified paths ensuring 100percent availability of power at all times, thus powering the two million square feet CtrlS Datacenter Campus spread across 10 Data Centers. The campus is currently under construction of which four rated-4 data centers are operational.
CtrlS GIS facility has very limited sensitivity to environment, humidity. It is highly corrosion resistant, seismic resistant, enjoys an operating life of greater than 50 years, with no maintenance requirement for 25 years and protected against aggressive environmental conditions. This GIS facility will now help businesses collocate their high density IT infrastructure combined with seamless scalability to address their growth requirements.
Sridhar Pinnnapureddy
Founder & CEO
CtrlS Datacenters
“The deployment of 300 MW gas insulated substation scalable to 700 MW is our commitment to the industry as we continue to address the growing needs of hyperscalers, telcos, BFSI, healthcare, gaming, and new age companies. We stay committed to adopting innovative approaches to serve the unmet needs of our customers, said, Sridhar Pinnnapureddy, Founder & CEO, CtrlS Datacenters.”
The GIS deployed by CtrlS is one of the first large scale deployment in Asia powered by 3 line configuration (N+N+1). It has 3 source substation backed by two or more substations. The power is sourced from express feeds which have seamless 24/7 supply and which will never go down. CtrlS is equipped to deliver large capacities such as 100 MW of power to any customer in 15 to 18 months. The project has been commended by GBCI (Green Business Certification Inc) for its high level of green footprints.
Gopalakrishnan, Managing Director, GBCI, South-East Asia & Middle East, said, “CtrlS deploying a 300 MW gas insulated substation is a path breaking phenomenon in the industry. This is the first of its kind deployment of power infrastructure by any data center company in the Asia-Pacific region. What is more interesting is the fact that CtrlS has planned ahead by ensuring that the GIS can be scaled up to 700 MW. Combined with its planned addition of 2 million green data center footprint in Mumbai the company is now poised to address the needs of high-density racks.”
“Through this investment, CtrlS has again placed sustainability and efficiency at the core of its operations to provide its customers with world-class green data centers in India. Demonstrating its sincere commitment to sustainability, Ctrls Mumbai received its LEED Platinum certification under LEED v4 O+M in 2017 and has registered their second project within the same campus for LEED under LEED v4 BD+C in 2019”, added Gopalakrishnan.
The salient features of CtrlS deployed GIS include: Protection system such as over voltage, Under Voltage, short circuit, instantaneous, master trip, intra trip, axillary etc and more 40 protection systems of the entire GIS infrastructure is built in N+N architecture The GIS facility has lighting arresters, dedicated BCU (bay control units), BPUs (Bay protection units) for each bay. It has alarm systems and is fungi resistant. It has aluminium casing and an ethernet interface. The GIS has a Windows based monitoring system. The GIS has a gas leak detector. All the cables laid are of 1100V grade FRLS armoured PVC copper cables conforming to IS 1554.
Continuing its tradition of rolling-out innovative solutions to its customers, CtrlS has successfully deployed a new generation 300 MW GIS with unmatched levels of reliability, performance and security through real-time monitoring, interoperability and automation. The company stays committed to delivering best-in-class solutions as it expand its hyperscale data center footprint to 6 million in the next 18 to 24 months across Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, besides enhancing its edge data center network in tier-2 and tier-3 cities in the country.
The GIS technology originally began in Japan in the 60’s, where there was a critical need to develop substations with a greatly reduced footprint. In comparison, a conventional Air-Insulated Substation (AIS), occupies more space than GIS. In the US, only about 2 to 5 percent of new substations are constructed as GIS. The AIS leads to wastage of space, suffers from seismic instability and poor dielectric strength of air.