On Perspectives, the blog written by Amazon’s data center efficiency guru James Hamilton, there’s a post highlighting the Ishikari data center in Japan. The data center does a few innovative things, namely using high voltage direct current (DC) power distribution and ductless cooling. The DC current question has been around for a while (claims are that a DC power distribution can result in 30 percent energy savings though Hamilton points out it’s actually closer to 3-5 percent), but now that solar power is gaining ground, it’s arisen again. Solar panels put out DC power so coupling solar panels with a data center that uses DC current instead of AC current, cuts down on a conversion step and can increase efficiency. IBM is trialing this type of setup in Bangalore, India and we’ll see if it can catch on.