Electricity North West

Case Study

About

Electricity North West owns, operates and maintains the North West’s electricity distribution network, delivering more than 23 terawatt hours of electricity each year, connecting 2.4 million properties, and more than 5 million people in the region to the National Grid.

Electricity North West own one of the original 14 regulated electricity distribution networks in England, Wales and Scotland and are regulated by Ofgem – the Office of the gas and electricity markets. Its network covers a diverse range of terrain, from isolated farms in rural areas such as Cumbria, to areas of heavy industry and urban populations including Manchester.

The Brief

Sudlows were appointed by Electricity North West, to design and build their brand new data centre.

Sudlows were asked to deliver a highly resilient, state of the art facility to support the critical infrastructure of this energy operator. The new facility was to be located in the North West and is designed to provide additional resilience to the company’s vital operational infrastructure.

The Solution

Following the deregulation of the Electricity board and the creation of Norweb in the 1990’s, Electricity North West was established as a dedicated power distribution network operator.

ENWL were looking to create a new centralised and energy efficient data centre, as a number of legacy data centre facilities were no longer part of the core ENWL estate.

The new data centre was designed and constructed in a dedicated secure site in the North West to deliver enhanced
operational support.

This major project involved the demolition and clearance of the original site building that was housing transmission equipment as this was not suitable for modification.

Once the site was cleared, Sudlows Engineers built a new enhanced steel framed structure and cladding to house and protect the new data centre.

Overview

• 450m2
• 500KVA – Power Capacity
• 38 x 42U Cabinets.
• 4 x 200kW GEA Denco DX CRAC cooling units (N+1) per room.
• 3 x 10kW DX AC cooling units for UPS.
• 2 x 250KVA UPS (N+1)
• 500KVA Diesel Generator.
• 96 hour fuel tank.
• Building & Construction Works
• Energy Management System.
• Integrated Access Control Intruder and CCTV.

Conclusion

The new efficient data centre provides the electricity operator with the reassurance of further network resilience.

The new data centre will also provide additional operational support to the essential maintenance programmes by the field engineers.

Testimonial

Paul Geddes, Head of IT & Telecomms for Electricity North West said:
“We chose Sudlows due to their reputation for delivering efficient data centre facilities.

“Investing in a new data centre is part of our long term investment programme and it will help us continue to provide a reliable and efficient supply of power across the North West for many years to come.”

Andy Hirst, Managing Director of Critical Infrastructures at Sudlows added:
“Electricity North West are one of the six companies that operate the 14 original electricity distribution networks in Great Britain. It is essential that the new data centre is designed to operate at the highest of standards to maintain resilience and uptime.”

 

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