Multicell Power Supplies for Improved Energy Efficiency in the Information and Communications Technology Infrastructures

The rapid growth of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector requires additional infrastructure, such as more micro-datacenters and telecom stations, to support the higher internet speeds and low latency requirements of 5G networks. The increased power requirements of the new ICT technologies necessitate the proposal of new power supplies in an attempt to retain the increase in energy demand and running costs. The work analyses how multicell structured power supply units can increase the energy efficiency of the power supply systems and thus minimize running costs of ICT networks. The effect of multicell structures in energy efficiency improvements is verified experimentally and through simulations in PSIM’s thermal module. A new multicell Power Supply Unit (PSU) is proposed for ICT power supplies and it is shown that using multicell structures, higher efficiency at varying load levels can be achieved.