4D Data Centres keeps its cool on the hottest day of 2013

4D Data Centres is serious about green technology and its colocation premises in Byfleet now boost a total of 29 evaporative cooling (sometimes called “adiabatic cooling”) units following the recent installation of an additional 10 EcoCooling units at 4D Surrey.

These units ensured that even on the official hottest day of the year, 22 July, with a temperature of 33.5C round the corner at Heathrow, 4D was able to maintain an optimum environment for its clients’ servers using evaporative cooling alone.

Jack Bedell-Pearce, managing director of 4D Data Centres comments, “We are very conscious that data centres gobble electricity which is both expensive to buy and not an eco-friendly way to operate, so back in Autumn 2011 we embarked on replacing our traditional air-con system with greener technology. It has been a strong selling point with many clients who also want to be environmentally responsible.”

He adds, “Over the coming months we will be monitoring, reviewing and tweaking the upgraded cooling system to ensure it works optimally during all conditions.”

These units were added ahead of the additional load requirements that will be generated as extra rack space is deployed on the data floor. Other planned work includes updating 4D’s Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) programme with new data and modelling minor design modifications (such as vented floor tile layout) to maximise the efficiency of the EcoCooling units to all the racks.