Lassonde researcher partners with industry for green energy solutions

Lassonde researcher John Lam’s new grant will help him explore sustainable power solutions for data centres and servers.

Through the NSERC Engage grant, Professor Lam will work with industry leader Cistech Limited to find new power converters for a growing number of digital solutions that consume large amounts of energy.

In the past decade, servers, data centres, and storage systems have been increasing rapidly as a result of the proliferation of the Internet and the growth of digital capital.

“I am excited to have this opportunity to work with Cistech to devise next-generation power electronic converters for powering green data centres. It’s a great opportunity for students to experience a research environment with industry,” said Professor Lam about the research project.

These centres are conventionally powered from the grid with AC power, with backup DC power. When renewable energy is employed as the main power source, a separate power converter is required to interface with the grid to support the demanded power.

Currently, this configuration faces multiple challenges. In this project, a new power converter configuration will be devised that will simplify and streamline the conversion.

This configuration will maximize the power conversion efficiency and will ensure data centres and servers will function properly under a wide range of conditions.

As a result of this, power conservation and sustainable power solutions can continue to support our growing reliance on digital solutions.