Dutch ICT service provider, Previder, has selected Eaton as its electrical supply system provider to ensure uninterrupted, 24/7 availability of its new data centre in Hengelo. Previder offers spacious, modern and energy efficient data centres that meet the needs of the modern technology world and so reliable power supply and security is crucial.
Opened in 2010, Previder’s PDC2 is the largest carrier neutral data centre in eastern Netherlands, with four separated rooms and a surface area of 2,500m2. While in western Netherlands many data centres are below sea level, PDC2 is at 14 metres above sea level, thus offering the certainty of dry feet. When designing its PDC2, Previder wanted to ensure that its customers would get a future-proof data centre. This meant certain issues with the data centre’s connectivity, electrical supply and energy efficiency had to be carefully addressed using the most modern technologies available.
Previder chose Eaton to build the entire electrical system. They selected an Eaton total turnkey system which included everything needed for a functional electrical system, including medium voltage switchgear panels, main and data centre rooms’ low voltage switchgear panels, busbars or bus ducts and UPS systems.
“We had one single contact at Eaton who provided a fast response to all of our queries, and all equipment could be bought with one stop shopping. Choosing Eaton’s turnkey system saved us a lot of time and brought us remarkable financial benefits,” said Marco Alink, facility manager in PDC2, Previder.
At PDC2, the power supply system was built as a TIER3+ installation and is also ISO 27001 certified. All crucial systems in each data room, such as the electricity supply, emergency power supply, air conditioning and network connections, are duplicated in accordance with the N+1 principle. The redundancy standards used – N+1, N+2 and 2*(N+1) – ensure that all possible chances of failure are removed by a second or even a third back-up system. The most critical systems even have double redundancy (N+2).
Each data room is designed to have a 2N UPS solution with two separate A and B electricity feeds. Within the project, Eaton has delivered the UPS system for data room 1, which has an IT load of 1MW. The system consists of six 9395 UPSs of 550kVA each. Each feed has two UPS systems in use and one for redundancy. The system is fully redundant, because each power feed is capable of providing enough power for every data room’s load in the case of failure in another power feed. The redundancy of the UPS is based on Eaton’s Powerware Hot Sync load sharing technology, which enables the units to operate completely independently in parallel.
In order to cut energy usage and achieve best possible efficiency without affecting up-time, data room 1’s UPSs utilise Eaton’s energy saving technologies. Two different technologies were chosen to share the risk of power failure. Feed A’s UPS system utilises Eaton’s Energy Saver System (ESS), which enables the UPS to reach 99% efficiency without sacrificing reliability, while power feed B uses Variable Module Management System (VMMS) technology for optimal employment of UPS power modules.
In normal circumstances, both feeds are used at the same time (2N). Each feed only works on half load at maximum. In the case of total failure in one feed the other will take over the total load, still working on the N+1 set-up.
The environment was one of the factors taken into consideration when PDC2 was being built. The aim is to achieve power usage effectiveness (PUE) value of 1.25, which means that only 25% of the power will be used for supporting systems. Many other data centres have a PUE value of 2.0. This makes PDC2 one of the greenest data centres in the Netherlands. Previder exclusively uses green power and cooling is handled by an environmentally friendly free to air cooling system.
“We were very satisfied with the end result Eaton delivered for PDC2,” Alink concluded. “For us, it’s about maximum stability and that’s another reason why we chose Eaton. They have extensive experience with data centres and are experienced with low and medium voltages. The good maintenance contracts and attractive prices which we agreed for the whole project testify to this. The positive experiences we have had at this centre form an excellent prelude to establishing another twin data centre here in Hengelo.”
