Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 56 | Page 51

FEATURE: LITHIUM BATTERY ERA Huawei prepared for lithium battery era Data centre managers are always keen to understand how they can make more efficient and sustainable choices when it comes to power. In this article, Huawei’s regional team tell us how the company has launched its new-generation data centre lithium battery solution SmartLi and how this provides numerous benefits to customers. This year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to John B Goodenough, M·Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino for their contribution to the development of lithium batteries. John Goodenough, who is 97, also becomes the oldest ever Nobel laureate. His lifelong exploration of lithium batteries is truly admirable. As one of his important discoveries, lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) is currently the safest cathode material for lithium batteries. Thanks to Goodenough’s remarkable identification of LiFePO4, LiFePO4 batteries, or LFP batteries, have been created and widely used in various places. Among them, data centres and communications base stations are two of the most common application scenarios. Lightweight and powerful lithium batteries are also used in fields like electric vehicles. Compared with lead-acid batteries, lithium batteries are smaller, lighter and have higher energy density, higher availability, longer service life and more cycle times. www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 51