Rackspace has opened one of the UK’s greenest data centres, cutting operating energy by nearly 80 per cent.

The 50,000-server site in Crawley was built with Digital Realty as Rackspace prepares to expand the capacity of its managed cloud services.

The data centre is the first in the UK to use indirect outside-air cooling technology, which does away with energy-intensive mechanical cooling by performing heat transfer with outside air, without drawing it up through the floor.

This method gives it a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) rating of 1.15, compared to the average rating of 1.7 – meaning it uses 80 per cent less energy than the average UK datacentre.

Mark Roenigk, COO of Rackspace, said: “We partnered with industry leaders to design and deliver one of the most environmentally friendly and reliable data centres in Europe.

“We are proud of the energy efficiency achieved with the innovative design that will become the starting point for boosting the adoption of more efficient technologies in the UK and Europe.

“This is our 10th global data centre and this expansion will enable us to grow with our customers for many years to come.”

The 15-acre site is the size of two football fields, currently providing a six-megawatt capacity that should double to 12 megawatts in future, though Rackspace said there's potential to end up with a maximum 30 megawatts.

As geography plays a more important role in how data’s stored, Rackspace believes most requests to use the Crawley site will come from UK and European users, but it’s open to all customers.

Huong Truong