Hearth is guilty for a small however important variety of data-center outages together with a March 28 hearth that brought about extreme injury to a knowledge middle in France, and an evaluation of worldwide incidents highlights ongoing issues in regards to the security of lithium-ion batteries and their threat of combustion.
Using lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries in knowledge facilities is rising. Now generally utilized in uninterruptible energy provides, they’re anticipated to account for 38.5% of the data-center battery market by 2025, up from 15% in 2020, in response to consulting agency Frost & Sullivan.
Adoption is pushed by Li-ion batteries’ smaller footprint, easier upkeep, and longer lifespan in comparison with lead-acid batteries. As well as, Li-ion power storage is a key part in renewable power distribution, in response to Uptime Institute, which provides resiliency providers, recommendation on constructing and operating knowledge facilities, and certification providers.
Nonetheless, Li-ion batteries current a better hearth threat than valve-regulated lead-acid batteries, Uptime warns.
The agency present in its annual evaluation of data-center reliability that 7% of outages had been attributable to fires. (Connectivity issues—which embody points with fiber, community software program, and configuration—are the largest trigger, liable for 29% of publicly reported outages.)
“We discover, each time we do these surveys, hearth doesn’t go away,” stated Andy Lawrence, govt director of analysis at Uptime, in a convention name to debate the agency’s new outage analysis.
Hearth safety has at all times been a problem with regards to batteries and thermal runaway, when warmth builds up in a battery quicker than it may be dissipated. Over time, the trade has gotten a greater understanding of what causes thermal runaway in lead-acid batteries and developed clever charging circuits that enhance detection and avert issues, stated Chris Brown, chief technical officer at Uptime.
“We discovered lots by means of the years with lead-acid batteries. Now, lithium ion comes onto the scene, and it’s a complete totally different animal,” Brown stated.
Weigh the professionals and cons of deploying Li-ion batteries.
Li-ion batteries burn hotter than lead-acid batteries, and if the battery-containment unit is broken, it doesn’t react properly with oxygen or water, Brown stated. “We’re discovering that we don’t utterly, really perceive all of the failure modes of lithium-ion batteries in the meanwhile, and the charging circuits will not be in a position to deal with all of them,” he stated.
As with every battery, as soon as a Li-ion battery begins to burn, it is arduous to place out. “It’s going to burn till it expends all of its power, and simply dumping water on it doesn’t actually assist. It retains it from spreading, maybe, however it doesn’t assist,” Brown stated. “And the truth that it burns a lot hotter than lead-acid batteries [means] it’s going to do much more injury. It’s going to burn lots longer as a result of it shops much more power. And in order that’s the issue we’re seeing with lithium-ion all over the place.”
In response, native authorities and regulatory companies are enacting necessities associated to the storage of Li-ion batteries.
Brown recommends data-center operators pay shut consideration to facility design if Li-ion batteries are a part of the plan.
“If you’re utilizing lithium-ion batteries, then positively have a look at segregating them into their very own battery room,” he stated. A battery room ought to have no less than a few fire-rated partitions and ceilings, and operators ought to think about using a foam fire-suppression system “as a result of no less than foam will smother the hearth and assist to extinguish it, whereas water is simply going to maintain it from spreading.”
When requested about the usage of distributed batteries, versus a centralized UPS system with banks of batteries, Brown advises warning.
Prior to now, a traditional method was to take away each sort of flamable unit from the information corridor itself. Now, with distributed batteries being put in in racks and rack-mounted UPSes, data-center operators must weigh the energy-efficiency features of distributed Li-ion batteries in opposition to the hearth dangers, Brown says.
“The great factor is that if it does catch hearth, these are a lot smaller batteries, so that you may be capable to include it to some racks. Nonetheless, there’s going to be smoke, and in the long run, any racks in that neighborhood are going to suck a few of that particles into them. And whereas it might not trigger failures right now, that’s going to result in untimely failures sooner or later.”
Folks want to enter it with eyes extensive open, carry out a value—profit evaluation, and do what’s finest for them, Brown says. “However my suggestion is that you just get batteries out of the information corridor. That’s essentially the most dependable, most resilient factor you are able to do.”
Current data-center fires blamed on Li-ion batteries
Lawrence referred to cases during which Li-ion batteries are suspected to be the reason for data-center fires.
One of the vital infamous incidents occurred in early 2021, when the biggest cloud supplier primarily based in Europe, OVHcloud, suffered a catastrophic hearth that destroyed considered one of its knowledge facilities in Strasbourg and broken a neighboring one.
A Maxnod knowledge middle in France suffered a devasting hearth on March 28, 2023, and “we consider it’s attributable to lithium-ion battery hearth,” Lawrence stated.
A lithium-ion batter hearth can also be the reported reason behind a significant hearth on Oct. 15, 2022, at a South Korea colocation facility owned by SK Group and operated by its C&C subsidiary. The fireplace on the SK C&C knowledge middle reportedly began in a battery room and affected the operations of main South Korea tech corporations.
“Most of South Korea suffered an eight-hour service disruption. CEOs resigned. Authorities investigations and a number of class-action lawsuits had been initiated,” Uptime stated.
The SK C&C incident took tens of hundreds of servers offline, together with the IT infrastructure operating South Korea’s hottest messaging and single sign-on platform, KakaoTalk, wrote Daniel Bizo, analysis director at Uptime, in a weblog publish.
“The outage disrupted its built-in cell cost system, transport app, gaming platform and music service—all of that are utilized by tens of millions,” Bizo wrote. “The outage additionally affected home cloud big Naver (the ‘Google of South Korea’) which reported disruption to its on-line search, buying, media and running a blog providers.”
Kakao attributed the reason for the hearth to the Li-ion batteries deployed on the facility; SK Group has not disclosed its official findings.
Copyright © 2023 IDG Communications, Inc.
