Kao Data flicks the green switch at 36 MW London campus

The wholesale colocation company has delivered on green pledge, at no cost to customers

Kao Data’s 35-acre, 36 MW colocation data centre campus, located on the London-Stansted-Cambridge corridor, will run entirely on renewable energy at no extra cost to customers, the firm has announced.

The wholesale colocation company, that serves science and technology businesses, said the transition to renewables will reduce CO2 emissions by over 80,000 tons per annum, the equivalent of removing over 30,000 vehicles from the road, when the campus is operating at full load (43.5MVA).

The £200 million “hyperscale-inspired” campus provides around 150,000 sq. ft of technical space and 36MW of power for IT equipment, serving as a connectivity hub from Dublin to Amsterdam, a high-value cluster in the European data centre market.

The finished site will house four 8.8MW data centres, divided into four 2.2MW “Technology Suites”, the first of which, London One, was completed in 2018.

Kao Data is named after Nobel Prize-winning physicist Sir Charles Kao, who pioneered the use of fibre optics for the company which previously occupied the site, Standard Telecommunications Laboratories, an innovation that paved the way for superfast broadband.

In April, FTSE 100 investor Legal & General announced they would be pumping £115m into the campus, citing its commitment to a “digitally-connected and clean environment.”

In keeping with the site’s history, Kao’s London campus makes extensive use of the latest data centre innovations. London One was the first wholesale colocation data centre in the UK to deploy Indirect Evaporative Cooling (IEC) with no mechanical refrigeration, delivering a PUE of less than 1.2 across all load levels. The same mechanical-free (IEC) will enable Kao to keep costs down for its customers over the lifecycle of their leases.

“The EU Commission recently concluded by 2030 annual energy consumption relating to servers and infrastructure is forecast to rise to 75TWh,” said Paul Finch, COO at Kao Data.

“It is Kao Data’s belief that we need to work closely with our supply-chain to ensure renewable energy remains fully accessible, promoting sustainability and strong industry stewardship.”

The $34 billion (£26 billion) colocation market is currently experiencing booming demand as major cloud providers seek to move closer to major business districts.

According to CBRE, hyperscale cloud giants leased over 100MW of colocation capacity in Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam and Paris over the last 12 months, equating to a capital investment of $800 million (£635 million).