Issue 4, June 2009
FOCUS PLANNING
They need to prove they have the appropriate power sources.’”
Kingston Council’s borough neighbourhood committee was worried that the warehouse chosen to house the data center would require a large amount of electricity to power the computer systems, which would be switched on 24 hours a day and need air-conditioning
to keep them cool. The councillor’s fears led other members to worry that the area, as well as nearby Surbiton, would be plunged into darkness as a result of a power drain.
The data center, which was intended to house server equipment and to back up information for major banking and fi nancial institutions in London, was postponed until
LONDON: TELEHOUSE’S STRATEGY FOR THE LONDON BOROUGH OF TOWER HAMLETS
You could be forgiven for thinking that Tower Hamlets, one of Britain’s most deprived boroughs in London’s East End, would have escaped any objections to another data center in the area. But colocation fi rm Telehouse says it had to meet strict criteria to gain planning for Telehouse East.
An important lesson learned from this installation was that data center builders should get as much planning permission as they can, as early as possible.
Telehouse obtained much of its planning permission for the site in 2001, but didn’t actually take advantage of this privilege until 2008. In the meantime, it was granted continuous permission. Given the greater awareness (or rather, wider range of misconceptions) about data centers today, Telehouse may have found gaining planning permission for electricity generators, for example, more diffi cult to come by. Even though Telehouse West is now in a position to make a contribution to the local grid.
Telehouse was asked to satisfy the planning authorities on electric, acoustic and aesthetic grounds. And not by just one authority either. Building in this region falls under the jurisdiction of the local council (Tower Hamlets), the GLA (Greater London Authority) and the ODA (Olympics Delivery Authority).
attitude to the generators setup for the data center,” he says. “Not only are they perceived as noisy, they’re supposedly dangerous because of the amount of diesel stored to fuel them. It’s scare-mongering and about as far from the truth as you can get.”
FEAR OF THE DARK Even those who are IT literate and familiar with the industry can demonstrate a lack of understanding. In the London borough of Kingston upon Thames, a data center planned for an industrial park in Chessington was delayed after a local councillor raised fears about electricity blackouts and humming noises.
The local paper, the Surrey Comet, reported that “Councillor Rob Lee, who works in the IT industry, asked questions about the building’s power supply. He said: ‘We don’t really want the lights going off in this area.
Although the area is fairly industrialised, Bob Harris, technical services director of Telehouse Europe, believes the data center has not added to this aesthetic, but has instead lightened the landscape. “I think this area can be quite attractive, and we’ve rendered the building and added various shades to make it more attractive, as well as installing a range of lighting to put it in its best light,” he said.
More importantly, the site has gone to great lengths to prove that noise pollution will not be an issue. The generator pod, if built in 2003, would have needed to be sunk 15 metres deep into concrete, to guarantee noise cancellation. Today it is buried at twice that depth. Mechanical plant on the roof of the building (used to extract air) is similarly forced to run at lower speeds, to meet stricter noise control criteria.
It’s all worth it, however, because the result is an £80m, 19,000 sq metre state-of-the-art data center that will transform generated waste heat into energy for the local Docklands community.
A collaboration with local consultancy WSP Group, a sustainability and engineering fi rm, will see Telehouse save up to 1,110 tonnes of CO2 emissions per annum and provide up to nine megawatts of power for the local neighbourhood.
The project is the fi rst major data center to gain planning permission in London since stringent sustainability requirements were written into the city’s legislation.
www.datacenterdynamics.com
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