Aggreko highlights opportunities for European data centres

A new two-part whitepaper from Aggreko, titled Uptime on the Line, from Aggreko has identified opportunities for facility stakeholders in major European data centres to maintain site resilience in a challenging climate.

The whitepaper conducted interviews with 700 data centre consultants working for major corporations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. It was looking for information on power outages, supply chain delays, local energy prices, and the state of the grid infrastructure right now, as well as how these things affect facility construction and operation.

The sector's ability to implement long-term strategies as well as short-term solutions to counteract additional uncertainty and upcoming stricter regulations is also outlined in the report's findings. Billy Durie, Aggreko's Global Sector Head for Data Centers, says that the responses show that there are tactical opportunities to help manage energy and temperature control in modern facilities.

“Data centre demand is constantly increasing, yet utility provision needed to service this new development pipeline is currently under strain,” says Billy. “Keeping new and existing facilities online during this continued expansion are therefore priorities of global importance, so it is vital conversations occur on the best way to deliver power and temperature control to sites.

“Resilience is being tested by events outside the sector’s control, including volatile energy pricing, extreme weather conditions, high consumption rates and a degraded supply chain. As this report demonstrates, old certainties such as being able to keep server halls online more than 99% of the time are now in jeopardy, meaning operators will need to explore new approaches to mitigate risks.”