Cambridge to get the greenest data center in Europe?

June 9th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

http://www.propertyweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=297&storycode=3115489&c=1

London developer BNB Developments has won consent for one of Europe’s largest and greenest data centres to be based in Cambridgeshire.

The company, which has set up a special purpose vehicle called Lasercham to bring forward the development, has got the go-ahead from East Cambridge District Council for a 700,000 sq ft data centre campus.

The Elean Data Campus will be built at the former Mepal airfield site in Sutton, 12 miles north of Cambridge.

I wonder what technologies are being used to help achieve the energy efficiency standards stated, whether DC power, fresh air cooling or more efficient airflow/design is being used, do check it out.

There Are 2 Responses So Far. »

  1. Comment by Jack on 10 June 2008:

    To answer your question:

    The six data centre buildings will be powered from multiple redundant sources, principally from the adjacent 38MW straw-burning combined heat and power plant, delivering demonstrable energy conservation. The plant will only use 100% carbon-neutral waste as a power source, reducing its environmental impact and further establishing its sustainability credentials.

    The waste heat from the plant will be available as an energy source for the Eco Village to heat the homes and also to cool the data centres through absorption cooling.

    The absorption chillers operate through a simple heat exchange process using super-heated lithium bromide, which would be energised using the off-take heat from the power station, which consumes almost no new energy.

    Studies have not yet been completed, however at this stage it appears that the data centre’s power demand, a theoretical maximum 72MW, could be very significantly reduced through the absorption cooling process. Preliminary estimates suggest that the cooling load may fall by 30MW, a saving of approximately 40%.

    Lasercharm representative, Alex Arthur, said:

    “The reduction in the energy burden will translate directly to reduced operational costs for the data centre occupiers, in addition to reducing the impact on the environment by the data centre campus. The combination of the biomass plant, the Eco Village and the absorption cooling will probably establish Elean Data Campus as the most environmentally-friendly and cost-efficient data centre location in Europe.”

  2. Comment by Thib on 6 August 2008:

    Hello everyone ! Can anyone tell me what is the estimated value of this green datacenter complex ? And when is the construction expected to be finished ?

    If you have any other info, just write it down, it is always interesting.

    Thanks

Post a Response