A perfectly tailored data centre power plan

As a colocation provider, our customer has to meet stringent timelines to get its new data centre up, running, and providing support for businesses as fast as possible. 

The customer had a strict RFS (Ready for Service) timeline – a firm date by which the data centre needed to be operating and meeting performance requirements for service quality. 

To meet this deadline, the customer needed to get power online for their data centre as fast as possible, so that they could run the tests needed to prove that the data centre was functioning to a high standard.

The challenge? Any temporary data centre power system design would need to be implemented during construction. Safely running cables and finding space for generators on a construction site would be no mean feat, particularly as plans for the layout of the site continued to evolve. 

The customer had worked with Aggreko in the past – so they knew we had the fleet, the expertise, and the technology required to provide the power they needed. 

They brought us onto the project early on, which meant we were able to build a power system that would support data centre construction and allow the data centre to run essential tests. 

This custom implementation included extensive planning to tailor the configuration of the data centre generators to the layout and requirements of the existing site.

In particular, we created an electrical design that would align perfectly with the customer’s SLD. The final setup consisted of eight 1,500 kVA diesel gensets, two 22 kV transformers, and two 20 KL containerised diesel tanks with all associated cables and switchgear. 

Crucially, our experts were on hand to make sure that the setup could evolve as construction continued. In particular, we needed to reroute cables couple of times throughout the project in order to ensure that power was still being delivered safely and reliably throughout data centre construction. 

With Aggreko’s help, our customer had the power it needed to run essential PTU (power train units) and mechanical load tests on its new site – giving it the data it needed to prove that it was meeting performance standards. 

As a result, the customer was able to demonstrate its compliance before the RFS date arrived – leaving it perfectly placed to start serving customers as soon as possible.