Hemel Hempstead Gets Low-Power Data Centre

Datacentre firm Gyron has commenced work on a new data centre in Hemel Hempstead, and expects to source all of the new facility’s power from renewable sources.

The new Maylands data centre, which Gyron expects will go into service in the first quarter of next year, will join the Centro facility opened by Gyron in Hemel Hempstead in 2009. The Centro facility also aims to use 100 percent renewable power sources – an increasingly important issue – Gyron said.

Secure compound

Maylands will be set within a secure compound with 66,000 square feet of data centre space and 22,000 square feet of associated offices and disaster recovery areas, Gyron said. It will use dual redundant 8MW power supplies from two dedicated on-site HV substations and connections to multiple fibre optic connectivity providers.

Security measures will include CCTV coverage, 24/7 on-site security staff and prison-specification electrified perimeter fencing.

Gyron said the facility will offer retail and wholesale colocation services with best-in-class resiliency and energy efficiency. It will support six data suites, each supporting rack densities of up to 28kW and a PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) of between 1.2 and 1.3, with 2N power resiliency. The industry average is 2.5 PUE, Gyron says.

“Like our Centro facility, we are aiming to source all of the energy requirements for the Maylands datacentre from 100 percent green renewable sources,” said operations director Ben Miller, in a statement. “We will also be extending our existing ISO 14001 accreditation to cover the new facility, and will be implementing the best practices recommended by The Green Grid and the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres.”

Power savings

Earlier this month Yorkshire Water said it expected to save 31 tonnes of carbon per year, which will help save it approximately £90,000 per annum, when its new energy efficient data centre comes online next year.

Yorkshire Water signed a deal with data centre solutions company 2bm back in April, and according to IT project manager Tim Williams, construction on the new data centre will start next month. The new data centre is also expected to have a PUE rating of below 1.2.

“Yorkshire Water has two data centres for disaster recovery and business continuity purposes,” explained Williams. “We replaced one data centre in Eastern Bradford four years ago, but the second one is now 17 years old so we are now replacing it. The technology in the old data centre was good for its time but it didn’t have any free air cooling.”

“We believe we can save £90,000 a year in operating costs, as well as saving 31 tons of carbon per year,” explained Williams. “We will do this by making use of ambient temperature (free air cooling), and cutting down on the use of air conditioning and air coolers.”

Over the next five years the data centre sector is expected to grow dramatically, according to a recent report from Tariff Consultancy Ltd (TCL), which found that raised floor space will increase by 28 percent on average.

The report also predicted that data centre revenue across Europe will increase by 53 percent over the five-year period to the end of 2016.