未来数据中心电池技术Batteries of the future
By Peter Judge
译 者 说
在环境危机日益严重的今天，我们希望采用更长时间的后备电池来替代柴油发电机。目前主流应用的铅酸电池显然不能满足日益增长的后备时间需求。新的电池技术百花齐放，锂电池的发展遥遥领先并已有不少应用案例，但它在安全性方面倍受担忧。未来的数据中心应采用什么样的电池技术呢？我们拭目以待。
随着数据中心的发展，其后备电池技术值得商榷。
As data centers evolve, their backup technologies are open to question
“任何人建设一个数据中心并不是为展示它采用的技术有多高大上，或在绿色节能方面有多大贡献，而是为IT系统提供一个可靠和可持续的运行环境。”Chris Brown说。
“No one builds a data center to show their technical prowess, or how green they can be they build it to house IT systems reliably, and sustainably,” says Chris Brown.
这是你期望他说的。作为Uptime Institute的CTO，Brown的工作是在如何保持数据中心稳定运行方面为业内提供建议。电池和柴油发电机在数据中心扮演着什么样的角色呢？他有一些有趣的观点。
That’s what you’d expect him to say: as CTO of the Uptime Institute, Brown’s job is advising the industry on how to keep data centers running. And within that role, he has some interesting points to make about the role of batteries and diesels generators.
“几十年来，电池一直是数据中心重要的组成部分，但它们一直以来是作为UPS系统的短时后备电源，”他在最近一次DCD网络研讨会上解释说，“电池提供非常短暂的后备时间，柴油发电机或其他电源启动后，将替代电池供电。”
“Batteries have been a part of data centers for decades, but they've been a short-term power source, associated with UPS systems,” he explained in a recent DCD webinar. “They have a very short ride-through time, until engine generators or some other onsite power production system can take over.”
发电机可提供更长的后备时间
Generators are here for the long haul
通常情况下电网是十分稳定的，但是数据中心仍需要一个长时间的后备电源，通常采用机械发电机，它将在电网长时间断电时为数据中心持续供电。而对于短时后备电源，它有两个作用：一个是在电网短暂波动时为负载供电，另一个是在发电机启动之前为负载供电。
Power grids are normally very stable, but data centers need a long-term backup power source - usually mechanical generators - that can cover for the grid during prolonged outages, and a short-term one with two jobs: covering for brief fluctuations and, during any long-term outage, powering the data center till the generators start.
“对于长期发电，发电机以其功率密度高，占地面积小的优势通常作为首选。只要为其提供足够的燃料，它们通常可为该数据中心提供长期供电。”Brown说。
“For long-term power generation, engine generators are usually the preferred option because they pack quite a bit of power into a relatively small footprint. And as long as one can obtain additional fuel for them, they can typically provide power for that data center for a long duration,” says Brown.
柴油可能很实用，但在现如今能源危机情况下，任何燃烧化石燃料的做法都是不可取的，并且还有其他问题。纽约城市大学教授，能源研究所所长Sanjoy Banerijee说：“柴油发电机实际上很难在城市运行和部署，尤其是像纽约，新加坡，洛杉矶等地。人们不想在市中心部署柴油发电机，或许我们可以采用长时间的后备电池来替代。”
Diesels may be practical, but anything which burns fossil fuel in a climate emergency is a bad thing - and there are other problems, says Sanjoy Banerjee, Professor at the City University of New York and director of the Energy Institute: “Diesel generators are hard to actually operate and locate - particularly in urban areas like New York, Singapore, or Los Angeles“People don't like to have diesel generators in the middle of the city. Perhaps we could replace these with batteries which have long-duration storage.”
EYP Mission Critical Facilities的Steve Shapiro并不认同：“我们不必对柴油如临大敌，我们需要做的是如何使用它，如何控制它，和用它来做什么。”他认为采用减排技术的清洁柴油比基于化石燃料的电网对环境的影响更小。
Steve Shapiro of EYP Mission Critical Facilities isn’t so sure: “Diesel isn't the enemy. It's just how we use it, how we control it, and what we do with it.” He argues that clean diesels with emission reduction technologies can be cleaner than a fossil-based grid.
如Banerjee所说，即使是如燃料电池这种看起来绿色的替代品实际上仍必须燃烧燃料，除非燃料电池采用所谓的“绿氢”，燃料电池仍是一种美其名曰的发电机，但发电机也可以采用“绿氢”或其他绿色能源。
As Banerjee points out, even apparently “green” replacements such as fuel cells actually have to burn fuel: “Fuel cells are a glorified generator, unless they're using so-called green hydrogen… but a generator could also use green hydrogen or some green fuel.”
铅酸蓄电池-CPG
lead acid batteries– CPG
在关键电源增刊的其他部分，我们深入地研究燃料电池的使用，以及采用更好的燃料使发电机变得更环保的方法。尽管Brown认为目前发电机将持续一段时间。
Elsewhere in the Critical Power supplement, we look deeper into the use of fuel cells, and the ways in which generators can be made greener with better fuel, for now, though Brown thinks “engine generators are going to be sticking around for a while.”
电池可提供强有力的支持
Batteries take up the slack
无论结果如何，电池毫无疑问具有很重要的作用。Brown预言电池的后备时间将增加：“在我刚开始从事数据中心领域工作时，大部分用户安装15-30分钟后备时间的电池。近10年以来，我注意到有些数据中心将电池后备时间降低到5分钟。我总是建议不要这样做，因为一旦电池有点老化，5分钟将缩短为3分钟，并在需要电池供电时突然出现问题。”
However that plays out, there’s surely a bigger role for batteries, with Brown predicting an increased ride-through time: “When I started in data centers, large installations had 15 minutes or up to 30 minutes of ride-through time. Over the last 10 years, I've seen people reducing this down to five minutes. I always recommend against this because once that battery starts to age a little bit, five minutes becomes three minutes - and suddenly you're having trouble with the battery actually doing its job.”
在一定程度上，这是一种降低对发电机依赖性的方法，他说：“我认为我们将看到更多数据中心将增加电池后备时间，从而使其运行时间延长，而无需在现场部署发电机”
This is partly as a way to reduce reliance on generators, he says: “I think we're gonna see an increase in battery ride-through time to enable some data centers to be able to run a little bit longer, without having to employ an on site power production system, which typically is engine generators.”
“如果你查看电网停电的情况，绝大多数停电时间都在几个小时以内。”这可能使很多发电机基本上处于闲置状态。
That might leave a lot of diesel generators essentially unused: “If you look at the outage profiles, the vast majority of outages are, restricted to a couple of hours.”
Banerjee举例说：“我正在处理的一个大型超算数据中心需要将10-15分钟的铅酸蓄电池系统改造为可持续运行2-4小时的电池系统。”
Banerjee has a practical example: “A large supercomputer center that I'm dealing with has a need to go from a 10-minute to 15-minute lead-acid system to a battery system which can last two to four hours.”
“这个项目位于人员密集市中心，”他说：“如果非必须，他们绝对不想采用柴油发电机”。
It’s in a dense urban area, he says, and ”they really, absolutely don't want to use diesel generators, if they don't have to”.
由于它是一个超算中心，而不是处理实时交易的数据中心，因此实际上它可以接受短时停电。“但是如果它确实需要关闭，则必须被安全地关闭。”
Because it’s a supercomputer center, not a data center handling real-time transactions, it can actually afford rare periods of downtime. “But if it does shut down, it has to safely shut down.”
权衡再三，他提出了一种“深度防御”地策略：“蓄电池应能解决99.9%的停电问题。”
Within this trade-off, he’s taking a “defense in depth” approach: “The batteries should cover 99.9 percent of the outages.”
绝大多数停电是可预知的，并且在最近10年间停电时间大大降低，因此4小时左右的1MW后备电池系统可涵盖他们的需求。
“The vast majority of the outages they can foresee - and the ones they've had in the last 10 years, have been significantly shorter than that. So a 1MW backup for around four hours covers their needs.”
从以往的故障事件中吸取经验
Overcoming past failures
虽然电池储备系统的未来看起来很美好，然而从以往的失败经验来看，在有些极端情况下，电池不能解决问题。2011年，地震导致日本福岛核电站关闭。由于没有电力供应，反应堆依靠柴油发电机循环冷却剂，直到地震后发生的海啸，发电机停止工作。
While the future looks good for battery storage, it’s got to overcome the memory of past failures, when batteries have not been able to cover in extreme situations. In 2011, an earthquake caused the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan, to shut down. With no electricity supply, the reactors relied on diesel generators to circulate coolant - until the tsunami which followed the earthquake hit, and took the generators out of action.
“电池是福岛核电站的最后一道防线，在持续8小时后，电池电量耗尽”Banerjee说：“这是一个大问题，我想当时人们恨不得尝试采用汽车中的电池以让其继续运行。”最终，冷却液停止流动，反应堆融化，造成了1986年切尔诺贝利以来最严重的核事故。
“Batteries were the last line of defense at Fukushima - and after about eight hours, the batteries ran out,” says Banerjee. “And that was a big problem. I think the people in the plant actually tried to hook up their car batteries to keep it going.” Ultimately, the coolant stopped flowing and reactors melted down, creating the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986..
现如今，新的电池技术有所突破，具备更长的后备时间和更可靠的性能，Brown说：“电池技术近年来发展迅猛。我从事数据中心行业已经超过25年，在前15~20年的时间里，电池技术看起来没有太大进步。但现在我们有了锂电池，人们正在研究锌电池作为另一个选择。我们研究各种不同的技术，以在更小的占地面积提供更多电能。”
Today, newer battery technologies can step up to the plate, and can cover longer timespans, with more reliable power, says Brown: “Battery technology has been advancing fairly rapidly recently. I've been in the data center industry for over 25 years, and it seems like for the first 15 or 20 years, battery technology didn't move. And now we have lithium-ion batteries, we have people looking at zinc as an option. There's all sorts of different things out there, where you can put more power in a smaller footprint than what we have seen in the past.”
并且采用新技术的电池具有更多优势，他补充说：“研究表明，相较于传统的铅酸电池，这些电池的使用寿命更长。虽然现阶段我们没有足够的应用案例和安装容量来证明它们是否能真正达到预期。”
And there are further benefits to new batteries, he adds: “The analysis shows that these batteries should last longer than our traditional lead-acid batteries before they have to be replaced, although we just don't have enough real installed data and a large enough installed space to really know if that's truly going to pan out.”
Banerjee认为新的电池有可能解决持续18或24小时的断电问题：“锂电池通常达不到像18到24小时的长续航时间，但其他技术或许可以做到。”
Banerjee thinks new batteries might handle up to 18 or 24 hour outages: “Long duration battery installations, of say 18 to 24 hours, typically cannot be done with batteries like lithium-ion, but some other technologies could do it.”
Shapiro并不确信：“新的电池技术更多是作为UPS或直流电源的后备系统，而不是解决公用电网长时间停电的问题。在未来5到10年，我们将主要研究短时电池供电，直到长续航系统有更多突破。”
Shapiro isn’t convinced: “New battery technologies are more for UPS backup, or for direct DC power, as opposed to going through a long-term utility outage. For the next five to 10 years, we're looking at short-term battery power until some long-term system kicks in.”
谁来为电池提供后备？
What’s backing up the batteries?
即使我们有了长续航电池作为后备，Banerjee提出了另外一个问题:“如果公共电网停电一周，我们将采用什么能源作为电池的后备？太阳能，风能，或其他能源？这在现阶段是一个开放问题。”
Even if we have long-term battery back up, that raises a further question for Banerjee: “If the power goes out for a week, how are these batteries going to be backed up? Solar, wind, something like that? This is an open issue currently.”
Brown认为，答案可能是我们需要采用分布式处理，可将数据转移到另一个数据中心，而让该数据中心关闭。他说：“如果我有两个距离足够远的数据中心互为备份，一个数据中心的电源故障不会影响到另一个数据中心，发电机和燃料储备将没有那么重要。”
Brown thinks the answer might be to use distributed processing to shift loads away, and let the data center shut down: “If I can get data centers that are far enough apart, so a single power event in one data center doesn't impact the other one, then engine generators and fuel storage starts to become a lot less important,”
2021年冬天，极端天气席卷而来，严重影响了德克萨斯州的电网，柴油发电机难以为继：“如果有人在邻近的一个州拥有一个数据中心，并且可以将业务转移到那里，那么他们甚至可能不需要运行任何类型的发电机。”
In winter 2021, when extreme weather affected the grid in Texas, diesel backups were hard to maintain: “If someone had a data center just in one of the neighboring states and could have transferred the loads to that, then they might not even have had to run any sort of engine generators.”
“我认为电池将是一个很好的过渡，我们将看到电池后备时间的增加，”他说：“但我认为行业也在寻求另一种解决方案，以减少在任何时间，对任何单一地点，任何单一数据中心的依赖，并可将业务转移。而不是试图让数据中心固若金汤，可抵御任何自然灾害。我可以将业务切换到另一个数据中心。”
“I think batteries are going to be a good interim step. We're going to see an increase in ride through time,” he says. “But I think the industry is also looking to become less reliant on any single data center in any single location at any single time and distribute that computing out. Instead of trying to bulletproof my data center to everything Mother Nature can throw at it. I'm going to switch over to another data center.”
Shapiro同意这个观点：“当我们考虑更换柴油发电机时，我们可能会发现最好的办法是着眼于IT侧建造冗余备份数据中心，这将减少对柴油发电机和电池等设施的依赖。”
Shapiro agrees: “When we look at replacing diesel generator power, you probably find the best bang for the buck in getting redundancy is on the IT side of the house - then there's less of a reliance on things like diesel generators and batteries.”
哪种电池是最好的？
Which battery is best?
但哪种新的电池技术最好呢？对于Banerjee来说，这是另一个开发性的问题：“这就像讨论有多少个天使可以在一个针头上跳舞。”
But which new battery technology is best? For Banerjee, that’s another open question: “It’s a little bit like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.”
铅酸电池已经十分成熟，他说，并且实际上可提供更长后备时间：“铅酸电池是现阶段对于15分钟后备时间储备的标准解决方案。但如果要达到4小时后备时间，你需要在此基础上乘以16，这将需要一个非常大的安装空间。铅酸电池有能量密度的问题。”
Lead-acid is extremely mature, he says, and actually could do longer ride-throughs: “It's the standard solution right now. It is great for 15 minutes storage. But if you go to four hours, you multiply that by a factor of 16 - and that becomes a large installation. Lead-acid has a compactness problem.”
铅也会对环境造成污染：“即使它是可以完全回收的，但在回收系统中仍有一定量的泄露。我们必须考虑的另一个方面是电池材料的回收是否对环境的影响真的很小。”
Lead also has environmental issues: “Even though it's fully recycled, there's a certain amount of leakage in the recycle system. Another aspect we have to put into the equation, is the recycling of battery materials to have a really environmentally low impact.”
那用什么来替代铅酸电池呢？目前锂电池遥遥领先。“现在每个人都在考虑锂电池，”Shapiro说：“我们现在做的很多项目都是用锂电池来替换铅酸电池。锂电池占地面积更小，电池连接方式略有不同。”
Among the replacements lithium-ion is the front runner. “Right now everybody's going towards lithium-ion,” says Shapiro. “We're doing a lot of projects right now where we're replacing lead acid batteries with lithium-ion batteries. The footprint is smaller, the way to connect it is slightly different.”
锂电池在未来7-15年内有更好的总体拥有成本，他说：“但你可以随心所欲的改变这些数字，总体拥有成本意味着什么，懂的都懂。”
Lithium-ion has a better total cost of ownership in the seven to 15-year range, he says: “But you can spin those numbers any way you want: total cost of ownership means what it means in the eye of the beholder.”
锂电池的安全缺陷
Lithium’s safety drawbacks
与此同时，锂电池仍存在防火问题。Shapiro说：“尽管你可以闭眼说，锂电池一点问题都没有。它具有完善的控制技术，在火灾时可以自行关断。但我们总能看到大容量的锂电池存储电站发生火灾，采用锂电池的数据中心也曾发生过火灾。并且当锂电池失火时，你不能将它扑灭直至燃烧殆尽。”
In the meantime, there are still fire protection concerns with lithium-ion, Shapiro says: “You can close your eyes and say, there's no problem at all. It's got the controls and technology to shut itself off in the event of a problem.“But we keep seeing large storage facilities that have fires and we have seen data centers that have lithium-ion batteries that have had fires. And when lithium-ion catches on fire, you really can't put it out. It's burning until it's gone.”
7月份，在伊利诺斯州的莫里斯，储存在Superior Battery的80吨二手电动车电池引起火灾，在这场事故中，消防员奋战4天，数千人被疏散。8月，特斯拉位于澳大利亚的一个300MW锂电池储能电站的1个13吨集装箱着火，消防员无计可施，不得不让它在四天内自行烧毁。
In Morris, Illinois in June, thousands were evacuated for four days, while firefighters struggled to contain a fire in 80 tons of second-hand EV batteries stored at Superior Battery. In August, at a 300MW Tesla battery storage facility in Australia, a 13-ton shipping container caught fire, and had to be allowed to burn itself out over four days.
Brown说：“关于锂电池起火的原因有多种多样。甚至物理损坏，如果你把锂元素暴露在氧气中，它就会引发火灾。并且不能采用水来对其进行扑灭，因为这样会引起其他后果。”
Brown says: “There's all sorts of reasons why the lithium-ion battery could have a problem. Even physical damage - if you expose the lithium to oxygen it is going to erupt into a fire. For a suppression system to put it out, you're not going to dump water on it, because then that has another bad reaction.”
莫里斯-伊利诺伊州的大火就是一个典型的例子。它一直燃烧，直到消防员最终用28吨水泥将其火势压制住。
The Morris Illinois fire is a case in point. It burnt until firefighters finally smothered the burning batteries with 28 tons of cement.
这类事件暂停了一些项目对锂电池的使用，Brown说：“人们希望使用锂电池，因为它是一种至少在某种程度上经过试验，真实的和被证明的技术。他们知道他们将得到什么。但我也从系统制造商那里听说，一些安装了锂电池的用户表示不会再安装了，因为保险公司不会为其承保。”
That sort of event is causing some to pause with lithium-ion, says Brown: “People want to go to lithium-ion because it's a technology that is at least somewhat tried, true and proven. They know what they're going to get. But I'm also hearing from manufacturers of these systems, that some big clients with lithium-ion installations won't be installing any more, because insurance companies are not going to underwrite them.”
在限制应用前提下的安全法规帮助
Safety codes help - but restrict usage
关于锂电池的安全法规正在迎头赶上，但对其自身也是一个挑战，Brown说：“如果能投入足够资金，你可以解决这个问题。保险公司在某些情况下开始驳回此类理赔申请。”
Safety codes are catching up, but creating a challenge of their own, says Brown: “You're able to get over it if you can put enough money into it. The insurance companies are starting to push back on it in some instances. And that's going to be a challenge.”
这些新的安全法规有可能会使锂电池更安全，但这些法规正在改变，Shapiro说：“即将被用于锂电池系统的安全法规仍在调整中。”
Those new safety codes may make lithium-ion safe, but they are changing, says Shapiro: “The codes that are coming into play on lithium-ion systems are still going to be tweaked.”
这些安全法规是以权威安全机构——美国保险商实验室的UL9540A测试形式出现的。该测试是为了防止锂电池失火的根本原因——热失控。
The codes have come in the form of UL 9540A testing from the safety authority, Underwriters’ Laboratories. This is designed to prevent the thermal runaway fire propagation which is the bane of lithium-ion.
Shapiro说：“新安全法规限制了锂电池的用法，它要求锂电池柜须通过UL9540A认证，并用于特定的方式。”
Shapiro says: “The adoption of new codes is restricting how you use lithium-ion, unless the lithium-ion cabinets are UL listed and applied in certain ways.”
他说：“最终的安全法规会要求锂电池的控制系统可断开电池组中的每一个电池，以尽量减小潜在火灾风险。但我认为目前的技术还做不到。”
Ultimately safety rules will require a system to disconnect every single battery in the string to minimize the impact of a potential fire, he says: “but I don't think that technology is there yet.“
这可能意味着位于城市的数据中心将不能采用锂电池作为后备电池，Banerjee提醒到：“锂电池的安全法规变得越来越严格。在纽约，FDNY（消防部门）要求其必须通过UL9540A认证以避免热失控事故。目前，我想说的是事实上在纽约的任何建筑内安装锂电池系统几乎是不可能的。并且我认为在未来几年内这种情况不会改观。我一直在努力。”
This could mean that data centers in cities cannot use lithium-ion batteries for backup, warns Banerjee: “The fire codes for lithium-ion are becoming more and more stringent. In New York City, FDNY [the Fire Department] requires that you go through 9540A UL certification to prevent a thermal runaway. Currently, I would say it's virtually impossible to site a lithium-ion system within a building in New York City. And I don't see that situation changing in the near future. I've been trying forever.”
真正想要采用锂电池的用户会寻找法规漏洞，通过替换电池以避开消防部门的规定，或将锂电池放置在法规限制外的户外集装箱内。如Shapiro所指出，这并不会消除火灾风险：“一旦这些集装箱着火，内部是没有防火保护的。并且除了让他燃烧殆尽，消防部门没有任何办法。”
Sites that really want lithium-ion batteries search for loopholes, swapping batteries to get past the Fire Department rules, or placing them in containers on the street or somewhere the rules don’t apply. As Shapiro points out, that doesn’t take away the fire risk: “When that container catches on fire, there's no fire protection inside the box. And there's no way for the fire department to do anything about it, it has to burn itself out.”
人为定价
Artificial pricing
即使在允许安装锂电池的地方，严格的限制条款仍然阻碍了新型数据中心基础架构的发展，Brown说：“相对于目前在数据中心主要采用的大型集中式UPS系统，我们曾经在业内大力推进分布式的UPS架构，这种架构采用分布式的UPS和电池系统（例如在有些情况把它们集成在机柜中）。”
Even in places that allow lithium-ion systems, restrictions could obstruct the development of newer data center architectures, says Brown: “We’ve had a big push in the data center industry to try to distribute our UPS systems and distribute battery systems [sometimes into the racks] instead of having the large monolithic UPS systems in a separate room.”
遗憾的是，基于对锂电池的安全考虑，将这种推行功亏一篑，因为这将引起IT空间的火灾风险。
Unfortunately, the safety concerns over lithium-ion are pushing data centers back to those monolithic battery rooms, because of the risk of a fire inside the IT space.
对锂电池还有另一个长期的担忧：它目前对用户的吸引力可能是来自人为的低价，Banerjee说：“锂电池的成本是扭曲的。目前，中国的磷酸铁锂电池产能过剩，从而导致了磷酸铁锂电池的人为低价。锂电池的应用趋势可能是由于中国巨大的产能引起的，而这些产能是在新能源补贴情况下发展的。”
There’s another long-term concern with lithium-ion: its current attractiveness may be based on an artificially low price, says Banerjee: “Lithium costs are distorted. Currently, there is a vast overcapacity for lithium-ion phosphate in China, leading to artificially low prices for lithium-ion phosphate batteries in particular. This move towards lithium may be engendered to some extent by the very large Chinese capacity, which was developed under a subsidy.”
基于以上所有原因，Brown认为数据中心最终将采用其他电池技术：“锂电池是在正确方向上迈出的一步，但我并不认为这是未来几十年我们要依赖的技术。”
For all these reasons, Brown thinks data centers will eventually move to other technologies: “Lithium-ion is a step in the right direction. But I don't think it's something that we're going to be reliant on for decades to come.”
锌——一种水基电池选择
Zinc - an aqueous option
除了锂电池，还有其他选择，Shapiro说：“镍-锌电池是一个选择，但它还未在市场上全面推广。还有钠离子电池，但如我所见，它还没有应用于MW级UPS的充分准备。”
Beyond lithium-ion, there are a few options, says Shapiro: “There’s a nickel-zinc system, but it hasn't been fully indoctrinated into the market yet. There's also sodium systems, but sodium isn't quite ready for Megawatt UPS capacities in the markets that I'm seeing.”
锌电池——ZincFive
A zinc battery from ZincFive– ZincFive
锌电池具有极大的市场潜力，Banerjee说：“它是一种水基电池，没有热失控问题。因此整个UL9540A测试将不适用。”
Zinc has big potential, says Banerjee: “It’s an aqueous solution, and you can't take an aqueous zinc-based solution to thermal runaway. So the whole 9540A issue more or less vanishes.”
并且Banerjee的实践经验表明锌电池确实是可以接受的：“我个人在城市大学安装了200kW的镍锌电池系统，事实证明这是被FDNY完全允许的。”
And Banerjee has practical experience that shows it can be made to work acceptably: “I personally have installed in City University, a 200kW hours system, based on zinc and nickel. The FDNY permitted that. It was fully permitted.”
然而，这是一个实验系统，在运行五年后现已被拆除，他说：“但这正表明像铅酸电池一样，锌基电池是一种消防系统所允许的解决方案，因为它不会带来热失控的问题。”
It was an experimental system, however, and has now been dismantled after five years operation, he says “But it certainly can be done. We know that, just like lead-acid, we can permit zinc-based systems, because UL people can't take them to thermal runaway.
与此同时，"锌基电池系统的能量密度和锂电池差不多，而且它不需要大量的冷却系统，因此它的成本也与锂电池相当。"
Alongside this, “zinc-based systems can be pretty much as energy-dense as lithium and, because it doesn't need a lot of cooling systems, it also could be comparable in cost.”
纳电池与锌电池有很多共同的优点，它们都是水基电池，在具备高能量密度的同时风险更小。纳也是一种价格低廉储备充足的元素。但它们仍处在初期研究阶段。
Sodium batteries share a lot of the benefits of zinc - they are aqueous, less risky and potentially have a high power density. Sodium is also a cheap and plentiful element. But like zinc batteries, they are at an early stage still.
关于后备电源的讨论以一个难题结束。现如今我们前所未有的需要电池以取代传统化石燃料解决方案，并确保其可靠性。但我们现在采用的主流铅酸电池能量密度较低，占地面积大。其最有竞争性的替代产品锂电池有火灾风险，而除此之外的最终替代品仍在开发中。
The backup discussion ends in a conundrum. We need batteries more than ever, to displace fossil fuel based solutions and provide reliability, but our main current technology is bulky, the lead contender to replace it is risky, and the alternatives beyond that for an eventual replacement are still under development.
翻译：
王薇
联想 数据中心基础架构项目经理
DKV（DeepKnowledge Volunteer）计划成员
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