Intelligent Data Centres Issue 08 | Page 10

NEWS DigiPlex invests with two new green data centres in Oslo igiPlex has broken ground on the construction of two new data centres near Oslo, Norway. The two centres will have a combined facility size of 8,500 m² and represent an investment of NOK 600 million. The centres are set to be operational in just 12 months, before the end of 2020. D The two new state-of-the art and environmentally friendly data centres will follow DigiPlex’s modular design principles and will be equipped with the company’s award-winning air-to-air cooling system. The high-efficiency system is uniquely suited to the Nordic climate where DigiPlex operates, yielding efficiencies and cost savings up to 25% beyond the industry average. The majority of the capacity across both centres is already reserved for global customers. DigiPlex’s two new data centres will be constructed at Fetsund and Hobøl. The new Fetsund facility will be located at the DigiPlex Fetsund campus adjacent to the company’s current 10MW facility. The second centre will be located in Hobøl, where DigiPlex has acquired a 40,000 m² plot with an option to purchase an additional 27,000 m². The size of the plot allows for construction of a data centre campus. The Hobøl and Fetsund developments are estimated to generate several hundred new local jobs, including subcontractors and suppliers to the sites. Plans announced to build world’s largest ocean powered data centre in Scotland IMEC Atlantis Energy Limited (‘Atlantis’), a global developer, owner and operator of sustainable energy projects, has announced ambitions for a tidal-powered data centre in the Caithness region of Scotland. reliable connection to London, Europe and the USA. The power supply for such a data centre would include electricity supplied via a private wire network from tidal turbines at the existing MeyGen project site. The MeyGen project has a seabed lease and consents secured for a further 80MW of tidal capacity, in addition to the 6MW operational array which has now generated more than 20,000MWh of electricity for export to the grid. S This would be the first ocean powered data centre in the world, with the potential to attract a hyperscale data centre occupier to Scotland. It is expected that the data centre would be connected to multiple international subsea fibre optic cables, offering a fast and 10 Issue 08 Further connectivity to the central belt using domestic terrestrial networks could significantly improve Scottish data and connectivity resilience. The target operations date for the data centre is expected to be 2024, in line with the expansion plans for the tidal array, however a smaller initial data centre module could be deployed sooner to draw on the output from the existing tidal array. www.intelligentdatacentres.com