“Our aim is to be an important, cutting edge green data centre operator in the European market, said Knut Molaug, CEO at Green Mountain. “We are achieving this goal amongst others with the help of Schneider Electric.”
Recently Green Mountain launched its second data centre (DC2 Telemark) at Rjukan, a historic industrial site in the Norwegian highlands, and known as the city where the sun never shines during winter! To meet pressing timescales, Green Mountain needed its second data centre to provide predictable performance and efficient operations.
Norway as a Data Centre Destination
Like a lot of Northern European countries, Norway is keen to emphasise to data centre customers the advantages of its abundant renewable energy supply, and the suitability of its climate for energy-saving free cooling. In a recent report entitled “Save Up to 50% on European Colocation by Choosing the Right Location”, the analyst Gartner explained how companies could make significant savings in operational expenses (OPEX) by locating some of their IT in the Nordics. To illustrate the point using a case study, Gartner report a 42% hosting cost-saving by splitting workload between London Docklands and Norway.
In addition to free cooling potential, electrical power in Norway costs up to 60% less than the UK. Because there is an over capacity of supply from zero carbon emission hydro power stations, power pricing is predicted to continue to fall in Norway, and as a consequence power pricing can be fixed for up to 10 years. For businesses looking to control their costs and budget for the future, this ensures predictable OPEX for cost that constitutes 40-80% of data centre operational expense; power and cooling. In addition, there are no CRCs or other carbon taxes levied on Norway’s sustainable energy.
Green Mountain Rjukan
Working in close collaboration, Schneider Electric and Green Mountain AS designed DC2 Telemark to mirror its first site near Stavanger. Rjukan is located in Norway’s Telemark region and the new data centre sits in an area famous for its industrial heritage. It was right here that Norsk Hydro built the world’s first fertilizer factories in the early 1900s in order to access the abundant hydro power supply. The same low-cost hydro power is today running the new data centre.
With a pressing timescale driven by a customer’s requirements, the new data centre was finished ahead of schedule to complete the first phase of a multi-million pound investment to build a large ‘zero emission’ collocation facility. The project was started in December 2013 and the facility was up and running by May 2014. DC2 Telemark is built on a ‘brown field’ site with a 10MW supply initially available. The next phases are planned with 4 new buildings and up to 25 MW total capacity.
The site is served by several large hydro power stations, located in very close proximity to the data centre and ensuring robust and low cost power. Like the Rennesøy data centre, DC2 Telemark has a unique cooling source available from an adjacent water supply which is first used for hydro generation in the mountain. As the water exits the mountain at a consistent year round temperature near the data centre it is piped to a heat exchanger in the cooling station. It is then discharged into the river where the raised temperature of the water helps fish breed.
The DC1 Stavanger cooling solution (including cooling station, chilled water pipework and pumps) is fully duplicated providing an N+N solution. Because there are few moving parts (circulating pumps) the solution is extremely robust and reliable. Server rooms will have available N+N chilled water under the raised floor. In row cooling will be installed to client specification using hot isle technology. Standard power density from 2-6kW m2, bespoke solutions can be accommodated up to 20 kW m2.
“The Rjukan site was chosen primarily for the availability of green power and free cooling. Rjukan is one of the cornerstones in Norwegian industrial history, and we are thrilled to be a part of and strengthen this proud tradition” said Knut Molaug, CEO of Green Mountain AS.
The robustness of the data centre’s multiple power supplies together with the physical security of both locations together with their submission for Uptime Institute Tier lll certification, make them ideal data centre for Europe’s most risk-averse corporations.
Prefabricated Data Centre Modules Mean a Flying Start for DC2 Telemark
Schneider Electric's recent acquisition of AST Modular, a leading provider of modular, secure and energy efficient data centre infrastructure, gave the project a flying start. Because of the short time available to deliver the new facility, a decision was taken to leverage the advantages of a prefabricated and pre-assembled, modular data centre build. Schneider Electric’s capability made it possible to complete the data centre within a 5 month window.
“In Norway, the order is a breakthrough for Schneider Electric as a supplier of turnkey data centres. Combining international and local expertise in our network, we could ensure that the data centre was built on time. Neither in Norway nor anywhere else in the world, are we aware of a similar build-out that has been delivered as quickly as this,” said Arild Bjørkedal at Schneider Electric.
“Since we opened our first data centre near Stavanger, we have found that there is a massive demand for security, power price stability, sustainability and scalability, so our plans include investments of £60M in the data centre In Telemark over the coming years,” said Molaug.
Norway and Hydro Power
Norway has all it takes to build and run the greenest data centres in the world. 98.5 percent of Norway’s electricity is from hydro power and sustainability is a core value of the country. The largest hydro power producer in Europe, Norway is also known for its political and financial stability, government effectiveness, quality of regulations, rule of law and control of corruption.
Green Mountain AS has a goal of achieving world class Power Utilization Efficiency (PUE) and provides a PUE below 1.2 in a Tier III configuration. Given the stable IT infrastructure, cooling and management solutions supplied by Schneider Electric, Green Mountain customers have the possibility of a consistently low PUE every hour of every day throughout the entire year. This is achieved through the highly efficient cooling system and the efficient design of the data centre.
“The combination of our flexible, scalable and reliable solutions and the data centre’s unique location will provide an extremely stable power supply security to GM's customers. For Schneider Electric, this is an important contract and we look forward to being a part of the development of the future data centres in Norway,” said Arild Bjørkedal at Schneider Electric.
