By energy storage, I assume you mean the energy stored in diesel, and released when combusted and used to turn a generator. If you are referring to batteries, do you have any links? I would be really interested to learn more about large scale datacenters that are using something other than diesel/natural gas for backup power.
I'm mystified why you think energy storage is only diesel. Any datacenter-focused energy storage resource you'd find on the web doesn't mention diesel for short-term storage. Batteries and flywheels are the most popular. Diesel is a medium-term solution.
I've never bought capacity at a datacenter which only had diesel backup. It simply doesn't start fast enough for short-term capacity.
When I read the comment about energy storage, I was thinking for longer term backup power of greater than 60 seconds of runtime.
You are correct, that it takes some time, usually about 10 seconds for a diesel generator to come online and provide the power. That power gap is traditionally provided by a UPS (which can be chemical (battery), kinetic (flywheel), or some other short term power supply).
Again, my interest is diesel alternatives that are being developed and deployed in large scale datacenters.
I used to work at a datacenter that had all the usual elements. ATS, UPS, Caterpillar genset. It's all quite interesting.
Ah. Well, one up-and-coming alternative is Bloom Energy fuel cells, which run on natural gas, and are supposedly inexpensive enough producing energy that it's reasonable to use them as "peaker" power production. I've never seen any numbers for them, though.
I mean, it's sort of silly to locate your data centers where you can't use on site renewable generation, no? If you're going to put a datacenter somewhere due to low land costs, but still meets your user latency requirements (speed of light), if you can generate onsite with solar and meet your consumption needs, and battery back it, and have utility power, you don't need large diesel gensets for battery backup (gensets that are rarely used but depreciating constantly).
Apple built a 200MW solar farm to power its Reno, NV datacenter. It also built a 50MW solar power plant on 300 acres in Florence, Ariz., which is used to power its Mesa data center. They use 100% renewables to power all of their data centers.
