Piller Power Systems has delivered and commissioned the final two medium voltage UPS and kinetic energy store power units to General Motor’s iconic Milford Proving Grounds data center.
The commissioning of the UNIBLOCK 2700 units with POWERBRIDGE kinetic flywheel back up was the final phase of a project that began over ten years ago.
In 2011 General Motors announced plans to build, own and operate two major data centers in Warren (Cadillac Data Center (Primary) – Warren Technical Center Campus (WTC)) and Milford (Proving Grounds Racetrack (Disaster Recovery, Data Replication, Digital Twin)), Michigan, USA.
By bringing IT back in-house and opting for on-prem data centers General Motors declared its primary Warren and Milford backup facilities as long-term strategic assets on which the company’s business strategy would be built.
General Motors engaged Piller to design and build power protection and backup for both sites.
It chose Piller technology power chain design, UPS protection and backup infrastructure and POWERBRIDGE kinetic energy storage to deliver maximum reliability, high efficiency and low Opex over a 20+ year timeline.
Dean Richards, MD, Piller US, said: “From the very start of our 10+ year collaboration to date General Motors understood it was building assets for the long term. In power back up, resilience and efficiency terms the General Motors team wanted to push the envelope of what was possible and Piller was happy to accept that challenge.”
From the outset General Motors saw the clear advantages of medium voltage for stability, low losses and low Opex.
Piller initially supplied 8x Medium Voltage Uniblock 3000kVA/2700kW uninterrupted power supply modules with 2 x 21MJ POWERBRIDGE energy storage units. Over the following decade Piller continued to supply its latest UPS and storage technology as each of the Warren and Milford 10,000 sq ft data halls were built out.
In the coming months Piller will complete the UPS and energy storage infrastructure deployment at General Motor’s Warren facility.
About Piller
Piller was founded in Hamburg, Germany in 1909 by engineer Anton Piller. Employing around 1000 people worldwide, Piller is headquartered in Osterode, near Hanover, Germany, with subsidiaries across Europe, the Americas and Australasia. Piller is committed to creating a sustainable future in mission-critical power protection, and energy storage.
The Piller group is a wholly owned subsidiary of the multi-disciplined global UK engineering and industrial group, Langley Holdings plc and is part of Langley Holdings’ Power Solutions division.