Customers to benefit from Climate Change Agreeement

Global Switch’s London customers will no longer be liable for the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) payments. This change will apply from 1 September 2014 to energy used by existing customers who take metered power and to all new customers going forward.

The UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the CCA for data centres in his Autumn statement in December 2013. It provided a concession from the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme for the data centre industry, following extensive lobbying by techUK of which Global Switch is an active member.

Since this announcement Global Switch has worked closely with techUK to enter into a Climate Change Agreement (CCA) with the UK’s Environment Agency having satisfied all of their requirements. Global Switch has offered green power for all 70MW of the connected capacity at its London data centre since 2009. Those customers that switched to green power have therefore benefitted from a Climate Change Levy (CCL) exemption since then. The CCA is the next phase of continuous improvement and value to all customers.

Global Switch has a comprehensive energy management strategy and works closely with its customers to reduce its collective carbon footprint. Global Switch London has recently been re-accredited with the Gold Carbon Saver Standard having demonstrated continuous reduction in carbon emissions over the previous five years.
All of Global Switch’s data centres are located centrally in Tier 1 markets in Europe and Asia-Pacific adjacent to international and metro carrier fibre routes and transport hubs providing customers with network dense low latency solutions. Inner city locations at the scale Global Switch operates means that the design and upgrade of its infrastructure must be approached sensitively to ensure the correct balance between customer requirements, energy consumption, plant investment and legislative changes.

Derek Allen, Global Switch’s Group Director of Operations and one of the early members of the Data Centre Council of techUK, said “I am delighted that Global Switch has been given assent to the underlying CCA in the UK. This is recognition of the leading position Global Switch has in the data centre market and the growth in the sector. I believe the investment we have undertaken at our London data centre campus including upgrade to our cooling infrastructure and working with customers to improve their efficiencies has been central to our strategy. I am confident that going forwards we can meet or exceed energy control measures demanded by membership of the CCA scheme.

“The Data Centre Council has been instrumental in persuading the Government of the importance of the data centre industry to the UK economy and to fairly represent the interests of its members and their customers. We look forward to continuing to support this initiative as well as the Data Centre Council.”

Emma Fryer, Associate Director of Climate Change Programmes at techUK, said “we are delighted that the scheme is now up and running and that Global Switch has satisfied the eligibility criteria and qualified for the CCA. The stringent requirements of the scheme and the emphasis on transparency mean that not all data centres will participate. Global Switch is taking a leading role in implementing energy initiatives across its facilities, driving good energy stewardship and passing the benefits back to customers.”