Efficiency is a hot topic in today's power-supply market. Once relegated to a less important role, improved efficiency is now a major movement on a global front. There are two major reasons for this shift. First, power-grid managers have their backs against the wall today, with grids lacking capacity and global power consumption growing at an annual rate of approximately 2%. At the same time, the installation of more capacity has been meager at best, and not just in North America and Europe. Countries such as China, South Korea, and India are consuming much less power than the United States, yet they too face a shortage in power-grid capacity. Second, some high-tech installations, such as data centers, are reaching the point of meltdown. Heat generation has become a critical issue, prompting more than 70% of data-center managers to reveal in a recent poll that power consumption and heat generation are the most critical challenges they face. Currently, power supplies contribute 35% to those losses.
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