Green Datacentres

Our Yorkshire data centre was one of the first in the UK to combine cold aisle containment with free cooling chillers. The hall uses a standard hot/cold aisle arrangement with the cold aisles sealed off at either end and a ceiling installed to trap cold air at the front of the racks.

The rest of the room becomes a hot aisle as air returns to the air conditioning units, sitting at 30-35°C while the air flowing through the servers is maintained at a cool 20°C.

With cold aisle containment, hot air cannot recirculate and mix with the cold air, so we only cool the air once — an obvious energy saver. We can also use a higher output air temperature from the AC units, saving further on power.

Temperature differences between the top and bottom of the racks are much smaller, meaning equipment at the top is less likely to fail. We estimate this approach saves between 40% and 60% on our air conditioning costs.

Free cooling takes advantage of the UK climate. Whenever the outside temperature is lower than the temperature of the water returning from the data centre, the atmosphere does the work for us and cools the water naturally.

For most days of the year, and pretty much every night, the chillers are doing very little. Even if we lost half of the AC infrastructure, there is enough capacity to keep the rooms cool.

We run the fans from the UPS system to keep air moving at all times, even in the event of a power failure. This ensures consistent airflow and cooling regardless of what is happening with the mains power supply.

We also cut the fan speeds needed to pressurise the raised floor void by using baffles to direct cold air precisely where it is needed, reducing wasted energy and improving efficiency.

We use thermal imaging technology to map the airflow and temperature distribution within our cold aisles. This allows us to precisely control the conditions and provide the best possible environment for your data.

By identifying hot spots and optimising airflow, we can ensure every server receives adequate cooling without over-provisioning our AC systems.

Beyond our energy-efficient infrastructure, we power our data centres with renewable energy by choice. We put significant research into finding the right energy supplier and maintain our green ethos at all times.

Combined with our free cooling and containment technologies, we are confident that our data centres are among the greenest in the UK hosting industry.