UK Grid is moving from turbo-charged to re-charged as its directors swap Porsches for electric cars.
The Carbon Neutral colocation provider, run from headquarters based at Synergy House on Manchester Science Park, is using energy-reducing technology to cut its carbon footprint.
Directors Rob Garbutt, Patrick Doyle and John Sweeney have handed in the keys to their existing company vehicles – two Porsches and a Mercedes – and have switched to three state-of-the-art Peugeot iOn electric cars.
The four-door, battery powered iOn has a range of 93 miles and a top speed of 80mph. It costs just £1 to charge, working out at almost 1p per mile to run.
UK Grid will install three charging points at Manchester Science Parks which will allow any users of electric cars to roll up, charge their vehicles and get back on the road.
The technology remains in the early stages, but with more major car companies committing greater resources to the research and development of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, there is expected to be a greater roll-out of charging points over the coming years.
Mr Garbutt, chief executive at UK Grid, said: "We will not only be the first business in Manchester, but one of the first in the UK to switch to electric cars for company use, but we will also provide the first charging point in Manchester.
"We have always had a strong company ethos on renewable energy and carbon footprint reduction.
"This is a natural next step for us. By making the decision to switch to alternative technologies as our mode of transport, our carbon footprint is further reduced and hopefully we can demonstrate to other businesses across Manchester the great strides forward that are being made in electric car technology and capability."
Peugeot’s fleet director Phil Robson said: "As soon as we announced the commercial details for iOn, we received enormous interest from both private and public sector organisations who like its environmental credentials, simple finance and low running costs.
"But perhaps more gratifying is the positive response in terms of driveability, safety and flexibility; all areas where it has to compete with traditional vehicles."
In their bid to become carbon neutral, UK Grid has planted trees in 200 acres of woodland on its farm in Scotland three years ago – which is now maturing, and is in the first stages of building a windfarm in Kircudbright in Dumfries and Galloway, which will provide 16 mega watts of electricity to the National Grid.
Mr Garbutt added: "The company has made a commitment to invest in wind technology to reduce its energy usage burden as well as generate power for the National Grid.
"It’s early days but it’s an innovative way to bring green renewable energy to the regions.
"As a company which uses electricity at an industrial level, we want to be as environmentally-friendly as possible."
About UK Grid
UK Grid are the largest independent provider of Carrier Neutral Colocation solutions in Northern England. With a network of business class data centre facilities UK Grid provide solutions to organisations looking to outsource their data centre in order to secure and protect critical server, data, applications and telecommunications equipment. All UK Grid colocation facilities provide power protection, high capacity cooling systems, fire protection, high levels of security and a wide range of network and communications options. All UK Grid’s facilities are 100% carbon neutral.
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Thursday, March 17, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
UK Grid Begins Final Phase of Synergy House Data Centre Expansion
Manchester, 1st March 2011
UK Grid (www.ukgrid.net), the largest provider of carrier neutral colocation solutions in Northern England, today announced that work is to commence immediately to expand one of its Manchester based data centre facilities, Synergy House.
The three month expansion project will bring two additional colocation zones online during Q2 2011. Creating two new data halls on separate floors in the North Wing of the building, areas DC4 & DC5 will release an additional 6000sq ft at Synergy House for a range of colocation offerings starting from quarter racks up to private suites for 5 full racks and above.
Power to the site has been upgraded and a second dedicated substation has been built to serve the new areas. Once upgrade works have been completed, power availability at the 23,000sq ft facility will be increased to a total of 4MW and the second substation will ensure mains power redundancy from existing zones at Synergy House – DC1 and DC2.
In order to expand connectivity options into the new zones, Geo Networks have brought their national fibre network into the North Wing as well as the South Wing, giving fully diverse national fibre connectivity.
Rob Garbutt, UK Grid CEO comments, “This announcement is great news for UKGrid, our clients and any organisation looking for quality data centre space outside of London. With existing Synergy zones DC1 and DC2 at capacity and DC3 at 50%, the expansion should allow us to satisfy demand over the next 12-18 months. It’s an exciting period as we’re simultaneously executing on our longer term and large scale expansion strategy to ensure a continuation of high quality data centre space estimated to see us through into 2015.”
The overall target PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) for all Synergy House data halls is 1.32 making the colocation facility one of the most efficient data centres in the UK. To continue with their ‘Environmentally Responsible’ approach UKGrid state that Synergy House is and will continue to be completely carbon neutral owing to their forestry projects that offset all carbon emissions from their data centres.
Patrick Doyle, UK Grid CTO comments; “Whilst we do our upmost to minimise energy wastage, a sizeable data centre provider will always have a significant carbon footprint, so we’ve invested heavily to balance our impact through meaningful environmental projects such as the UK Grid forestry. This plantation offsets all carbon emissions generated at all of our facilities and will do so well into the future. As well as being environmentally responsible, this means our clients can immediately claim that their UK Grid hosted IT platform is one hundred per cent carbon neutral’.
The project is expected to create up to 10 additional jobs in Manchester and the company’s projected turnover from the redeveloped site once full is £6.5million.
About UK Grid
UK Grid are the largest independent provider of Carrier Neutral Colocation solutions in Northern England. With a network of business class data centre facilities UKGrid provide solutions to organisations looking to outsource their data centre in order to secure and protect critical server, data, applications and telecommunications equipment. All UKGrid colocation facilities provide power protection, high capacity cooling systems, fire protection, high levels of security and a wide range of network and communications options. All UKGrid’s facilities are 100% carbon neutral.
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UK Grid (www.ukgrid.net), the largest provider of carrier neutral colocation solutions in Northern England, today announced that work is to commence immediately to expand one of its Manchester based data centre facilities, Synergy House.
The three month expansion project will bring two additional colocation zones online during Q2 2011. Creating two new data halls on separate floors in the North Wing of the building, areas DC4 & DC5 will release an additional 6000sq ft at Synergy House for a range of colocation offerings starting from quarter racks up to private suites for 5 full racks and above.
Power to the site has been upgraded and a second dedicated substation has been built to serve the new areas. Once upgrade works have been completed, power availability at the 23,000sq ft facility will be increased to a total of 4MW and the second substation will ensure mains power redundancy from existing zones at Synergy House – DC1 and DC2.
In order to expand connectivity options into the new zones, Geo Networks have brought their national fibre network into the North Wing as well as the South Wing, giving fully diverse national fibre connectivity.
Rob Garbutt, UK Grid CEO comments, “This announcement is great news for UKGrid, our clients and any organisation looking for quality data centre space outside of London. With existing Synergy zones DC1 and DC2 at capacity and DC3 at 50%, the expansion should allow us to satisfy demand over the next 12-18 months. It’s an exciting period as we’re simultaneously executing on our longer term and large scale expansion strategy to ensure a continuation of high quality data centre space estimated to see us through into 2015.”
The overall target PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) for all Synergy House data halls is 1.32 making the colocation facility one of the most efficient data centres in the UK. To continue with their ‘Environmentally Responsible’ approach UKGrid state that Synergy House is and will continue to be completely carbon neutral owing to their forestry projects that offset all carbon emissions from their data centres.
Patrick Doyle, UK Grid CTO comments; “Whilst we do our upmost to minimise energy wastage, a sizeable data centre provider will always have a significant carbon footprint, so we’ve invested heavily to balance our impact through meaningful environmental projects such as the UK Grid forestry. This plantation offsets all carbon emissions generated at all of our facilities and will do so well into the future. As well as being environmentally responsible, this means our clients can immediately claim that their UK Grid hosted IT platform is one hundred per cent carbon neutral’.
The project is expected to create up to 10 additional jobs in Manchester and the company’s projected turnover from the redeveloped site once full is £6.5million.
About UK Grid
UK Grid are the largest independent provider of Carrier Neutral Colocation solutions in Northern England. With a network of business class data centre facilities UKGrid provide solutions to organisations looking to outsource their data centre in order to secure and protect critical server, data, applications and telecommunications equipment. All UKGrid colocation facilities provide power protection, high capacity cooling systems, fire protection, high levels of security and a wide range of network and communications options. All UKGrid’s facilities are 100% carbon neutral.
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