Interxion cuts energy cooling costs by 20% in West London datacentre through EkkoSense deployment

Colocation provider Interxion has revealed details of how it plans to capitalise on the work it has done to cut the amount of energy used to cool one of its facilities in West London by 20%.

The Digital Realty-owned datacentre operator claims to have curbed the amount of energy used to cool one of its facilities in West Drayton, Middlesex, by one-fifth by deploying EkkoSense’s datacentre infrastructure management software.

The product is designed to give datacentre operators real-time visibility of the thermal performance of their server halls and identify areas that could lead to unnecessary amounts of energy being used to keep them cool.

For instance, the software could detect issues with floor grille layouts or how the fans being used to circulate air around the facility are functioning, so operators can take corrective action.

In Interxion’s case, the company said the insights gleaned from the EkkoSense EkkoSoft Critical software package have enabled it to achieve 100% thermal compliance within the facility, which, in turn, led to a 20% drop in the amount of energy used to keep it cool during the first 12 months of the project.

Jeff Tapley, group managing director at Interxion, said the results from the initial projects had been “nothing short of impressive”, and the company now plans to roll the software out to five more of its European sites this year, as well as two of its facilities in New York in due course.

“As an organisation, we take very seriously our responsibility to create green, energy-efficient datacentres,” said Tapley. “This means we are constantly looking for innovative ways of reducing energy consumption and also making sure we play our part in supporting the UK’s 2050 net zero emissions target.”

James Kirkwood, head of critical services at EkkoSense, said the technology tie-up between the two firms demonstrates the significant energy-efficiency gains that can be achieved in datacentres by deploying thermal optimisation software.

“Key to the results has been the unique performance analytics built into EkkoSoft Critical to highlight airflow and cooling inefficiencies and to provide visibility of critical metrics throughout the energy-saving process,” said Kirkwood.

“The team at Interxion also uses the software on a daily basis for ongoing monitoring and evaluation capacity planning activities to maintain the optimised state as the environment changes.”

The project is one of a number that Interxion is known to have in place, as part of its push to bolster the sustainability of its global datacentre portfolio, which includes commitments across Europe, the Middle East and Africa to power its facilities using renewable power.

Its parent company, Digital Realty, recently outlined its plans to cut its carbon emissions by 2030 by embarking on a 10-year programme of work to boost the environmental friendliness of its operations.