Medium Voltage Supply Directly to Data-Center-Servers Using SiC-Based Single-Stage Converter with 20kW Experimental Results

Generally, the data center server racks are supplied with power at or below 400V, primarily due to safety. However, due to the rapid increase in the size of data centers, the power demand is also rising sharply, and some of them consume power over a hundred MW. This results in bulky and inefficient low voltage distribution power cables to the server racks. In this paper, an attempt is made to directly feed medium voltage to data center servers using SiC converters, where the safety issues are addressed with a contactless power transfer technique. The selection of power converter circuit, steady-state operation, converter design, and contactless power transformer selection are reported. To verify the analysis and performance of the converter, a 20kW lab-prototype with input 1000V and output 48V is developed, and the details of building the system are discussed. The experimental results are included to verify the performances of the proposed system.