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NGD EUROPE FIRST TO GO 100 PER CENT ON RENEWABLE ENERGY
Data centre makes radical move to take all its power from renewable sources
Newport, Wales, June 7th 2010: Following a ground-breaking long-term supply agreement NGD Europ, one of the world's largest data centres, has become the first in Europe to purchase renewable energy for 100 per cent of its power usage.
As part of its commitment to carbon reduction (CRC), Next Generation Data Limited, the UK owner and operator of South-Wales based NGD Europe has appointed Smartest Energy, the UK's largest purchaser of electricity from the independent generation sector, to supply the recently opened state-of-the-art 750,000 square feet facility.
Commented Mark Larard, Director of the Data Centre Advisory Group for global real estate advisors, Jones Lang LaSalle: "Based on our Spring 2010 European Data Centre Barometer1 survey among data centre operators, carriers, developers/investors and corporate users, NGD Europe's wholehearted and immediate commitment to renewable energy supply is likely to prove to be totally in-tune with industry wishes. In general, the rest of the industry remains in a state of flux over if, when, and how much it is prepared to embrace this critical issue. NGD continues to challenge industry expectations, and it will be interesting to see if others try and follow."
NGD Europe's tenants, including BT and Logica, will immediately benefit from enhanced environmental credentials for no additional price premium as well as total peace of mind from NGD Europe's on-site high capacity 180 MVA sub-station which, unlike other data centres, enables connection directly to the National Grid to assure high availability, resilience and control of power supply from grid to rack.
"Our pioneering renewable energy agreement will directly benefit existing and future NGD Europe customer organisations and demonstrates we are actually doing what other data centres are only just starting to think about. In an industry which consumes over 2 per cent of the UK's total power supply, it is a significant step to ensuring our operations are as competitive, efficient and environmentally-friendly as possible," said Nick Razey, CEO of Next Generation Data Limited. "The mounting pressure and legislation for reducing carbon footprint and emissions will increasingly affect large IT users and their data centre operations which is why we always planned to be totally supplied by renewable energy from the outset of the project."
Commented Martin Balaam, Managing Director of BT Engage IT: "BT is a leading and long-standing advocate of carbon reduction and renewable energy initiatives and is therefore delighted that its managed hosting operation at NGD Europe is now totally supplied from renewable energy sources. This is also further good news for our many managed IT service business customers which are already benefiting from significant cost savings following our move to NGD Europe earlier this year."
SmartestEnergy is the leading purchaser and supplier of electricity from the independent generation sector in the UK with around 40% of the independent generation market share. The company supplies independently generated electricity to large blue chip companies including Marks & Spencer, Toyota, Hitachi and Eurostar.
Commented Jo Butlin, Vice President of Retail, SmartestEnergy Limited: "We are very pleased to supply renewable power to one of the world's largest data centres. Next Generation Data should be congratulated for sourcing their energy from renewable technologies and has set the standard in its sector."
She added: "All of SmartestEnergy's renewable supply is backed by REGOs - Renewable Energy Guarantee of Origin - which prove the power is from a renewable source."
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