EDITOR’S QUESTION
HOW CAN ORGANISATIONS ADAPT
THEIR DATA CENTRE OPERATIONS TO
BECOME MORE ECO-FRIENDLY?
ao Data has excelled at
the Datacloud Global
Awards, winning the
‘Excellence in Corporate
Social Responsibility’
category, against
entries from around the world. This
is a major achievement for Kao Data
and demonstrates its commitment
to principles of responsible business
capability, customer service and, crucially,
its environmental sustainability. impact and energy efficiency as
demonstrated by the achievement of
BREEAM ‘Excellent’ award for DC1, part
of the four-building, 35MW IT power
capacity campus.
The judges highlighted the selection
of location and regional climate
considerations in the development of the
UK’s first 100% free-cooling data centre. Utilising a system with no mechanical
refrigeration eliminates any global warming
potential (GWP) gases, years before the
F-gas regulations bans their use.
We spoke to Gerard Thibault, CTO,
Kao Data, to find out more about the
company’s work, while three industry
experts tackle our editor’s question. Highly efficiently engineered, the
complexity of both mechanical and
electrical infrastructure is reduced, along
with the power capacity of the electrical
distribution and back-up power generation.
K
Achieving ‘Excellence in Corporate
Social Responsibility’ at Datacloud 2019
underlines a long-standing commitment
and demonstrates the effectiveness of Kao
Data’s business processes and responsibility
to improve operational performance,
provide increased assurance and reduce the
environmental impact of the data centre.
From the outset, the team at Kao Data
considered sustainability, ecological
www.intelligentdatacentres.com
Both design and construction phases of
the project reviewed by the BRE with their
‘Energy Assessment Method’, confirmed
the benefits of the 1.2 ultra-low PUE
achieved by the Technology Suite ‘free
cooling’ system.
Operating at the ‘allowable’ envelope
brings further reductions in energy
consumption and even without the
benefit of having secured a 100%
renewable energy power contract with
EDF (operating with carbon neutrality), the
overall carbon footprint of the data centre
is reduced.
As a strategic business opportunity, the
design reflects the ’best practices’ that
Open Compute Project endorses, which
allowed Kao Data to be the first UK OCP-
Ready facility.
Operating at the ASHRAE ‘allowable’
range is an ‘optimum’ requirement
of the self-assessment protocol, in
which Kao Data DC1 scored 75% at
‘optimal’ or above, by including gaseous
contaminant monitoring.
This drives a reduction in material usage
and potential pollution in emergency
power failure scenarios. Adoption of OCP principles produces a
hyperscale inspired design, harnessing
the largest growth sector of the data
centre market, a Kao Data target
customer group.
Coupled with the climate in the
geographical location, Kao Data can
meet the requirements of ASHRAE TC 9.9
‘recommended’ environmental conditions
throughout the year even at the extremes
and into the future. The Kao Data London One has a
commitment to creating a more
sustainability aware industry, which
results in a highly scalable, ultra-efficient,
regulation complaint and customer
focused site.
Issue 06
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