Electricity networks for data centres

A fully accredited specialist, Energetics is already a significant presence in designing and building electricity, gas, water and street lighting networks at other new-build commercial and residential property sites.

The company is also one of only six independent providers licenced to own and operate UK electricity networks. These organisations compete directly with the seven traditional electricity network companies, such as UK Power Networks, which formerly enjoyed monopolies in their regions, often under previous company names, and which still have the lion’s share of the market.

Key features of Energetics’ data centre offer include: allowing customers substantial discounts on the capital cost of installing electrical infrastructure, which traditional suppliers cannot provide; specifying fixed connection costs in advance, rather than emulating the former monopolies’ practice of providing estimates, which can understate final bills by six-figure sums; and only charging for the power capacity data centres request during successive ramping periods, instead of demanding full payment at the outset for the amounts eventually required, as traditional providers do.
Energetics says it also offers significant benefits for data centres, compared to the former monopolies, in project areas such as: feasibility studies; programme timescales and surety; network ownership and energy provider choice; operations and maintenance charges; payment terms; sub-station location and appearance; and its service culture.

Summarising these distinctions, Bill McClymont, chief executive officer, Energetics, said: “We stand-out from traditional providers by having an overarching focus on the customer. This is reflected in our service - which includes guaranteed standards, attendance at design team meetings and single points-of-contact, among other features – plus a range of cost benefits, while we also offer decades of experience and a traditional supplier heritage across our business.

“Additional advantages of appointing us for data centre customers include that we offer innovative design methodologies and creative thinking in solving potential problems. At Salford’s Media City UK, we not only designed a network with two grid supply points, to satisfy the BBC’s requirement for high network resilience, but completed the project in a shorter timescale than any former monopoly would have achieved, for example.

“We also regularly challenge supposedly non-contestable operation and maintenance costs prescribed by the relevant traditional regional electricity company, on a customer’s behalf, where we feel this appropriate. We secured savings of over £1m for a large retail development by successfully contesting the engineering design and substantial network reinforcement charges proposed, for example.”

Mr McClymont added Energetics had already proved its capabilities in the data centre field by successfully designing and building the electricity infrastructure for a 10MVA site in central Scotland. That experience was one of the reasons the company had decided to make its data centre offering more widely available.

Energetics project-manages the design-and-build process, from planning to connection. In its new field, it will work closely with operators including data centre developers, main contractors and mechanical and electrical consultants.

The company will present its new offering at a trade show for the first time when it attends Data Centre World, at London’s ExCel, on 26 and 27 February, where its representatives will be available at stand J15.

Energetics is expanding its activities after receiving substantial new investment last year from affiliates of Macquarie Group Limited (Macquarie), a leading provider of banking, financial, advisory and funds management services.

At the time this backing was confirmed, Energetics said it would now invest to grow market share, create jobs and extend its operations across the UK, expanding the strong base it had already established. That would mean choice being brought to far more potential customers, particularly over electricity connections, where competition was not yet well-established.

Among the high-profile developments on which Energetics’ in-house utility engineers and service staff have worked successfully are: Birmingham New Street station, where the company’s delivery of a high-voltage electricity supply will help provide a twenty-first century transport hub for the city and wider West Midlands; retailer John Lewis’s customer contact centre in Hamilton Technology Park, near Glasgow, where a tailored solution, saving considerable space, was connected ahead of schedule, with minimal disruption to other occupants; and Oakgrove Millenium Village, Milton Keynes, a Millenium Communities Programme development comprising 230 homes, schools and a health centre.