Green Telecom Part IV: Telco Systems brings solar power to data centers

Telecom gear maker Telco Systems is bringing a solar power system to market that will help reduce the cost of electricity consumed by data centers and other research facilities. The system was developed by Distributed Solar Power, an Israel-based startup, using technology licensed from Tel Aviv University, and builds on a strong Israeli interest in solar power. Telco Systems is using it on the roof of its facilities in Israel and hopes to make it commercially available later this year for deployment in 2009.

“In Israel today, you cannot build a house without a solar panel on the roof for heating water,” said Telco Systems CEO Zvi Marom. What makes the DSP system unique is its ability to locally create both power and hot water, which can be used to lower both electricity and air-conditioning costs. That makes it especially useful to data centers and other facilities housing servers, switches and other electronic gear that consume a lot of air-conditioning to offset the heat they generate.

“The current systems that are common now produce photovoltaic energy (i.e. electricity) or [use] several mirrors that are pointed toward a concentrating tower which produces steam that turns turbines, etc.,” Marom explained. “That is how solar power stations are built. The units on our roof produce locally both photovoltaic energy – electricity – and very hot water, almost steam. The hot water can be used just as hot water for any purpose or as a part of a heat exchange system in air conditioning. Because both electricity and air conditioning are used during the day and the solar production is also maximum during the day, it is very efficient.”

During the day is when electrical rates are at their highest, so the savings are the greatest, Marom said. “The electric company has a tariff which sets the price of electrical power at about six times more than during the night. So if I can lower my consumption during the day, I can save six times per kilowatt hour in comparison to what I save per kilowatt hour I use at night.”

There is additional savings to be had by reducing the amount of energy that has to be transported over the commercial electric grid, since the cost of that transmission can be up to 40% of the overall cost of electricity, Marom said.

Telco Systems is seeing significant savings and has received ISO14001 environmental certification.

“We originally calculated the efficiency of the system to be six years to recover the initial investment, but now that we are using it, we know it to be 4.5 years,” Marom said.

Previously: Part One of this series looked at AT&T’s green initiatives, while Part Two reported Callis Communications’ effort to reduce power used by VoIP gear. Part Three reported on iControl’s efforts to help service providers leverage home security system sales to also promote home automation and energy savings.