Data Center Electrical Design & Reliability Concepts

This course provides an in-depth exploration of the conceptual electrical design considerations crucial for modern data centers. With a focus on high-level strategies rather than detailed design practices, students will gain a solid understanding of the principles required to design resilient, efficient, and scalable power systems tailored for critical data center applications. The course covers the foundational aspects of data center design, including defining functionality requirements, evaluating power system resilience, and considering redundancy strategies.

Students will learn about key design inputs such as uptime requirements, IT process criticality, service continuity levels, cooling loads, and modularity. The course also delves into advanced topics like grid connection strategies, UPS system technologies, generator reliability, and MV/LV power distribution architectures. Emphasis is placed on comparing redundancy topologies (e.g., N, 2N, N+1), optimizing load balance, and integrating innovative design features for both medium and low-voltage systems.

Through this course, participants will develop a comprehensive understanding of how to optimize data center electrical designs while balancing reliability, scalability, and total cost of ownership (TCO). While the course focuses on conceptual design considerations, it lays the groundwork for making informed decisions critical to ensuring high availability and performance in data center environments. Detailed design tasks such as equipment sizing, calculations, and software simulations are outside the course scope.