EDITOR’S QUESTION
HOW CAN
ORGANISATIONS
ADAPT THEIR DATA
CENTRE OPERATIONS
TO BECOME MORE
ECO-FRIENDLY?
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K
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.
The judges highlighted the selection of
location and regional climate considerations
in the development of the UK’s first 100%
free-cooling data centre.
We spoke to Gerard Thibault, CTO, Kao
Data, to find out more about the company’s
work, while three industry experts tackle this
month’s burning question.
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.
32
INTELLIGENTCIO
From the outset, the team at Kao Data
considered sustainability, ecological 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.
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.
Utilising a system with no mechanical
refrigeration eliminates any global warming
potential (GWP) gases, years before the
F-gas regulations bans their use.
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.
This drives a reduction in material usage
and potential pollution in emergency power
failure scenarios. 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. 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.
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.
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.
www.intelligentcio.com