Wolseley UK unveils its greener side
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Wolseley UK is proud to announce the launch of a new award-winning data centre, built on its head office site at Leamington Spa. The new Tier 3+* facility, which has already won industry plaudits for the use of green technology, provides Wolseley UK and DT Group - Wolseley’s Nordic counterpart sharing the facility - with more secure, available, scalable and efficient IT infrastructure, that is well positioned to meet future data requirements.
Cold aisle containment allows the centre to run at a temperature of 27°C instead of the traditional 22°C, which has reduced energy consumption by 12 percent. Sophisticated building management systems and technology such as LED lighting and photovoltaic panels have further slashed energy use.
The new data centre is part of an ongoing strategic drive to deliver cost optimisation and efficient technologies across the Wolseley business.
John Page, National Facilities and Property Compliance Manager, Wolseley UK, said: “This is a momentous step for us. We invest wherever possible in technology that maximises efficiency, improves the customer experience and reduces costs.”
Currently, the data centre’s six air conditioning units combine to offer total cooling capacity of 300 kilowatts. As the data needs less than half of this cooling power, there is potential to house up to 10% more equipment.
However, if Wolseley UK decides to invest in the free cooling technology it is currently exploring, capacity will be boosted even further, giving it the potential to become one of the greenest data centres in Europe.
John added: “We were delighted with our recent Data Centre Cooling Impact Award win at the RAC Cooling Awards. This is clear recognition from our peers of Wolseley UK’s innovation and vision for the future, so watch this space!”
About the EDC:
- Installed LED lighting saves 10 kilowatts of electricity per hour. Traditional lighting produces heat, which in a data centre would need to be cooled. LED does not produce heat, enabling the cooling load to be reduced to 10 kilowatts hours.
- Lighting censors – Lighting is controlled on movement censors and they turn on only in areas where people are working.
- Cold aisle containment – Traditionally data halls were open spaces requiring the entire room to be cooled. Equipment has been contained in three enclosed areas which requires cooling, reducing the amount of space needed to be kept cool.
- Running temperature – Traditional data centre cooling temperature is set at 22 degrees. Wolseley UK’s data centre will run at 27 degrees. This reduces the electricity required to run cooling.
- IT equipment has been purchased to run at a higher temperature. The higher running temperature increases the life span of the equipment.
- A centrally controlled Build Management System (BMS) enables efficient use of the equipment
- Energy Monitoring – How and where energy is being used is being monitored using a Building Management Energy System (BMES). This helps identify areas to improve energy usage.
- The data centre is part-powered by WUK’s solar panels on the National Distribution Centre (NDC).
- The data centre recently won the ‘Data Centre Cooling Impact’ award at the 2015 RAC Cooling Awards