From warehouse to (data)warehouse: Virtus keeps it cool in North London
Summary: A warehouse north of London is on the verge of completing its transformation into a datacentre
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The datacentre has diverse fibre and power supplies which enter the building at opposite ends, and enable the facility to continue operating as normal even if one of the feeds experiences problems.
The power supply consists of two 8MW 11KV feeds from the National Grid but Watkins said that the site will never use the full 8MW. He claimed that the site is currently drawing on less than 20 percent of that.
Nonetheless, datacentres are power-hungry environments and all that power doesn't come cheap. Ultimately, the amount of energy used is determined not by Virtus but by the clients inside the datacentre.
"The energy bill depends upon the amount of power that tenants draw, which we can't control," said Watkins.
When operating at full capacity, the site will draw 8MW of power per hour, which is equivalent to 27,000 houses.
Image: Sam Shead
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