Design ingenuity nets award for new Bristol City Council Data Centre

Release Date:  09-Feb-2010

Bristol City Council’s new state-of-the-art green technology data centre has won an innovation award at the national Datacentre Leaders Awards.

Data Centre 2 (DC2), which is situated in the Council House, uses the latest energy efficient design to save £20,000 per year in electricity.

By using the moat outside the building on College Green to provide chilled water for the air conditioning, DC2 will only need 20% of the power used to run the servers for cooling, and we are planning to reduce that even further.

One of the major challenges faced by the council and contractors was the fact that the Council House, which was built between 1938 and 1948, is a listed building and was therefore never designed to house modern IT equipment.

Although the project involved re-siting two existing Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS), it was almost entirely a new-build. And all the work had to be carried out without causing any noise problems in the Council Chamber and, as the room is below ground level, it was also essential to ensure it is water-tight.

Bristol City Council Infrastructure Services Manager Geoff Endicott, said: “Working on the design in conjunction with the company Future-Tech, we have achieved an elegant solution to a tricky problem.

“We also looked at other energy efficiencies when approaching the project but it was not possible to re-use waste energy at this time.

“However, the system has been designed so that it could be powered from a combined heat and power plant during winter, allowing the option of waste heat re-use when fourth floor heating is replaced in the Council House.”

The “innovative design” was placed ahead of those at Blackpool and The Fylde College; the University of Hertfordshire and the Ministry of Defence Police and Guarding Agency.

This year's awards paid particular attention to Green ICT, with the Carbon Reduction Commitment and the European Code of Conduct of significant importance.

Councillor Mark Wright, Cabinet Member for Housing and Service Improvement, said: “This project is a great example of an innovative and ‘joined-up’ approach by the council which has resulted in fuel savings worth £20,000 a year, reinforcing Bristol’s cutting edge status as a Green Capital and the driver of IT innovation.

“The award is further recognition of our efforts to reduce our carbon footprint and play our part in tackling climate change. My congratulations to all those involved in seeing this project through.”
 

Author:  Peter Wood, Media Officer, 0117 922 2651

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