IT cooling expert Airedale helps Bytemark Hosting reduce carbon footprint

A new £650,000 data centre facility for Bytemark Hosting is set to deliver significant energy savings. By using fresh air to provide free cooling for up to 90% of the year, combined with excellent part-load performance from staged cooling, Bytemark expects to achieve annualised PUE levels of 1.1 to 1.2 (load dependent).

  • Wednesday, 5th February 2014 Posted 10 years ago in by Phil Alsop

The new 250 square metre York-based facility adds valuable extra capacity to Bytemark’s existing network spread over the Manchester and London areas, allowing it to better support and grow the managed service it provides to prestigious clients like the Cabinet Office, Carling.com and Médecins sans Frontières.


Initial cooling capacity equates to 90kW with N+1 redundancy, expandable to 450kW N+1 to allow for growth. Airedale International’s SmartCool™ DX and EasiCool™ precision air conditioning (PAC) units reduce operating costs by switching to the best operating mode, irrespective of whether the data centre is underpopulated or density and heat loads are increasing.


From a touchscreen graphical application, Airedale ACIS™ software monitors the cooling plant including PAC and fresh air supply units, external generator, office air conditioning and UPS room cooling; manages air pressure within the data centre; triggers alarms and, in the event of fire, will automatically shut down the fresh air supply. The high efficiency PAC units were chosen for their ability to deliver extremely precise control of temperature and air quality, and to provide a resilient but scalable solution.


Working in conjunction with data centre infrastructure specialist, Sudlows, the multi-disciplinary team provided design and integration expertise which involved special adaptations to Airedale’s SmartCool™ units and a bespoke fresh air mixing box to provide direct fresh air free cooling for up to 90% of the year. To ensure the installation performed to manufacturer’s specification from day one, Bytemark engaged Airedale’s commissioning team, with on-going spares, service and preventative maintenance provided by Airedale’s service division.


Peter Taphouse, Operations Director and Co-Founder of Bytemark Hosting said: “Airedale’s innovative and integrated solution means we can make the most of the fresh air cooling opportunities in our York location. This means we can achieve a much more efficient data centre and reduce our costs, as well as the impact on the environment.”