Kao Data’s new campus at Harlow has been awarded OCP-Ready status.
Data centres are challenging public perceptions of the industry, by taking innovative approaches to maximising energy efficiency and sustainability. Pressure from government regulations, customer requirements, investors and other stakeholders is driving the industry towards effective design and utilisation of technical space within the facility. In particular, developments such as free cooling and thermal optimisation technologies are helping the industry lower its environmental impact, while renewables and distributed energy sources are also gaining increasing interest.
A new entrant to the wholesale data centre market, Kao Data is among those adopting novel approaches to power and cooling, to reduce their impact on the environment, resulting in the company being awarded BREEAM Certification for Excellence in Design. This sustainability assessment reflects the attention that has been paid to keeping a low carbon footprint, at the London One Campus, which is reported to be delivering an ultra-low, PUE of <1.2, even at partial load.
Following best practice has been key to delivering on Kao Data‘s efficiency goals and the data centre was among the first in Europe to become a pilot site for the Open Compute Project Foundation. While at Data Centre World, KAO Data announced that it had successfully achieved ‘OCP-Ready’ status.
Gerard Thibault, CTO at KAO Data, commented: “The recognition of the Kao Data facility as being OCP-Ready is a validation of the company’s philosophy of being ‘the home of innovation’. The Kao Data London One facility was envisaged as the UK’s first wholesale colocation data centre to be aligned with the hyperscale principles that target efficiency and effectiveness across the entire building and site.”
Unlocking free-cooling capability at the Kao Data Campus was also a key strategy to delivering on the company’s energy efficiency goals. Phase one of the Kao Data campus, has implemented N+1 Indirect Evaporative Cooling (IEC), utilising 13x Adia-DENCO AHUs, providing highly efficient climate control within the facility. This configuration enables concurrent maintenance of the IEC’s and also offers the required resilient back-up capability in the unlikely scenario of a unit failure.
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