Case Studies
Caterham Cars
Following Caterham Cars’ acquisition of a major new manufacturing facility in Oxfordshire, the specialist UK sports car manufacturer tasked Dell, Schneider and Electrical Mechanical & Cooling to deliver a purpose-built data centre to meet their immediate and long-term IT infrastructure needs.
The area allocated to the development looked nothing like a data centre and the limited external space available for the vital cooling equipment complicated matters.
To add to the physical environment and space issues, we also had to deal with the sites ageing power supply technology, including switchgear that did not have the available output to adequately service the planned new data centre. Our solution was to modify the existing electrical infrastructure by creating a new purpose-built section that was placed at the end of the existing switchgear. This enabled the correct power output to be made available to meet the new data centre demand, as well as allow for any anticipated expansion in the future.
Caterham’s new data centre required the very latest cooling technology to keep running costs as low as possible. To meet this need we installed three state-of-the-art 125kW chillers, together with a free cooler delivering N+1 resilience and free cooling for 10 months of the year.
As part of the construction and to provide maximum efficiency, a stainless steel pipe was welded between each chiller and free cooler, through to the Schneider cooling units that we were using in the data centre.
For an existing traditional data centre, hot air and cold air mixing can lead to more than 25% waste of the cooling capacity. As a result, the cooling system is normally oversized to make up for the waste, resulting in much higher energy costs. To overcome this problem, we recommended the application of containment strategies which included the installation of a hot aisle containment system, such as the Schneider HACS system, which was a key initiative for the Caterham data centre build.
The final stage of the project required us to provide and install an Automatic Transfer Switch for the 1250KVA hire generator with cabling through to the new switchgear extension and fitting Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) system to ensure continuous power supply stability.
At Electrical Mechanical & Cooling, we measure customer service performance from several points; with quality of craftsmanship and delivery within agreed timescales coming top of the list. The Caterham project delivered on both top measures, to Caterham, Dell and Schneider’s complete satisfaction.
Following Caterham Cars’ acquisition of a major new manufacturing facility in Oxfordshire, the specialist UK sports car manufacturer tasked Dell, Schneider and Electrical Mechanical & Cooling to deliver a purpose-built data centre to meet their immediate and long-term IT infrastructure needs.
The area allocated to the development looked nothing like a data centre and the limited external space available for the vital cooling equipment complicated matters.
To add to the physical environment and space issues, we also had to deal with the sites ageing power supply technology, including switchgear that did not have the available output to adequately service the planned new data centre. Our solution was to modify the existing electrical infrastructure by creating a new purpose-built section that was placed at the end of the existing switchgear. This enabled the correct power output to be made available to meet the new data centre demand, as well as allow for any anticipated expansion in the future.
Caterham’s new data centre required the very latest cooling technology to keep running costs as low as possible. To meet this need we installed three state-of-the-art 125kW chillers, together with a free cooler delivering N+1 resilience and free cooling for 10 months of the year.
As part of the construction and to provide maximum efficiency, a stainless steel pipe was welded between each chiller and free cooler, through to the Schneider cooling units that we were using in the data centre.
For an existing traditional data centre, hot air and cold air mixing can lead to more than 25% waste of the cooling capacity. As a result, the cooling system is normally oversized to make up for the waste, resulting in much higher energy costs. To overcome this problem, we recommended the application of containment strategies which included the installation of a hot aisle containment system, such as the Schneider HACS system, which was a key initiative for the Caterham data centre build.
The final stage of the project required us to provide and install an Automatic Transfer Switch for the 1250KVA hire generator with cabling through to the new switchgear extension and fitting Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) system to ensure continuous power supply stability.
At Electrical Mechanical & Cooling, we measure customer service performance from several points; with quality of craftsmanship and delivery within agreed timescales coming top of the list. The Caterham project delivered on both top measures, to Caterham, Dell and Schneider’s complete satisfaction.
“Electrical Mechanical & Cooling is the only company that I trust to install our Dell data centres throughout Europe and the Middle East. You can guarantee that every project, large or small, is delivered on time and within budget.” – Paul Foley, Schneider Electric.
“Electrical Mechanical & Cooling is the only company that I trust to install our Dell data centres throughout Europe and the Middle East. You can guarantee that every project, large or small, is delivered on time and within budget.” – Paul Foley, Schneider Electric.