Infotech Lead Europe: Data center provider Telehouse has opened a primary substation that connects directly to the National Grid, to power its London Docklands data centers. This makes Telehouse the only commercial data center provider with a privately owned primary substation.
Two 132kV power lines that are directly connected to the National Grid help reduce transmission losses and brings down overall energy costs and carbon tax. Many high-power usage companies in London have been riddled with power and electrical shortages ever since the Olympics was held in the city last year. Telehouse’s primary substation resolves the issue of securing consistent power and future-proofs the company’s business by ensuring that it can serve its fast-growing customer base for another decade.
The Docklands site also receives energy from Smartest Energy, a renewable energy provider, enabling Telehouse to power its data centers with green electricity.
Mace, an international construction company and ABB, power distribution technologist worked together to design and build the new substation over 18 months.
The £15 million substation with a total capacity of 50MVA is designed and constructed to a specification exceeding the highest UKPN tier of substations in technical delivery. The Docklands site reaches 40MW scalable to 50MW and holds two 50kVA transformers offering N+N redundancy which helps improve the overall uptime of its power provisioning levels for its customers.
Robert Harris, technical director at Telehouse said, “The completion of this substation was achieved within a short timeframe and makes Telehouse the only commercial data center provider with a privately owned primary substation. This latest development serves to reiterate our close working relationship with the National Grid, enabling us to ensure more reliable and consistent power in an environmentally responsible manner.”
Telehouse, established in 1989, presently serves over 1,000 major corporations worldwide, across a wide range of industries including government and financial institutions. Telehouse is also the data center subsidiary of Japanese corporation KDDI, a $45 billion Global Fortune 300 telecommunications and systems integration provider.
