25 Nov 2009

UK's largest data centre to use green energy

Dumfries & Galloway planning officials have given the green light to the UK's largest data centre and it will be powered by renewable energy.

The project will cost around £950 million and will create around 3,000 jobs over a five to ten-year period.

However, the most interesting part of the development comes from how the centre will be powered, as the majority of the power for the development is to come from renewable energy sources, such as wind farms.

James Cole, director of Keysource, said there needs to be a debate about the use of traditional versus renewable power sources for data centres, with reliability a key issue, as well as what to do with the heat that is created by IT equipment and how to use this in an efficient manner.

"We're here to understand, firstly, what we can do with the heat which has been created and secondly, looking at if we can use more renewable sources of power," he commented.

According to datacentres.org.uk, there are presently 95 such facilities in operation throughout the UK.