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bitstream [soylentnews.org] writes:

Google has kept its data center designs to itself until now. But some will now be opened up and they join the Open Compute Project [opencompute.org], set up by Facebook to share low cost, no frills data center hardware specifications [datacenterdynamics.com]. Google will donate a rack specification that they designed for their own data centers. Google's first contribution is a "a new rack specification that includes 48V power distribution and a new form factor [archive.org] to allow OCP [wikipedia.org] racks to fit into our data centers," the company said. "We kicked off the development of 48V rack power distribution in 2010, as we found it was at least 30 percent more energy-efficient and more cost-effective in supporting these higher-performance systems." The company said it hopes to help others "adopt this next generation power architecture, and realize the same power efficiency and cost benefits as Google." Google hasn't submitted a proposed specification to the OCP yet, but is working with Facebook on that. (seems arstechica.com is down and archive.org won't allow direct linking but just click "Latest" and you get to the page)

In many countries installations which uses 48 V DC don't require a formal qualification permit to setup.

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