Telehouse plans major upgrade to its largest London data centre

Telehouse International Corporation of Europe has given a significant build update to its largest existing data centre: London Docklands-based, Telehouse South. Multinational construction and development company, Skanska, has been appointed as the contractor to deliver the first phase of the main works, which will include completing two floors of colocation space by June 2024.

The facility, which officially opened in Spring 2022, will see a new highly efficient mechanical, electrical and public health (MEPH) infrastructure implemented, while its overall power capacity will increase to 7.7 megawatts (MW) across three floors of colocation space.

The revamp will include the redesign of existing plant areas, the opening of two new floors of colocation space and associated plant rooms, and the removal and recycling of all redundant plant and equipment from the entire building. In addition, the upgrade will feature the implementation of a new cladding system to improve building insulation and facility security.

Other key upgrades set to further enhance operational excellence and customer experience at the facility include: 

New Building Control Room (BCR) and Security Control Rooms (SCR) capabilities, including disaster recovery for remote facilities.

Security hardening with new vehicle management systems, boundary fencing, CCTV upgrades and analytics.

New security gatehouse and cycle storage.

New meeting rooms and breakout spaces.

Takayo Takamuro, Managing Director, Telehouse Europe says: “Situated at the heart of our iconic Docklands campus, Telehouse South has rapidly established itself as a critically important connectivity hub both for ourselves and our clients. The ongoing buildout and development of this state-of-the-art data centre underlines the high standards of security, sustainability and operational excellence that Telehouse is able to deliver to its data centre customers today.” 

Managing director, Dan Williams, Skanska, adds: “We’re very pleased to be providing the fit out and associated construction works. We have a history of successfully delivering a wide range of data centres and this project aligns with our core expertise.” The latest upgrade to Telehouse South is part of an ongoing process. At full buildout, the 31,000 square metres (sqm) facility will provide 12,000 sqm of colocation space and a total power capacity of 18MW.

The 11-storey Telehouse South data centre is Telehouse’s most ambitious infrastructural and aesthetic refurbishment to date which placed sustainability and reducing environmental impacts at the forefront of all building designs, with the first phase of the project completed in less than 12 months from acquisition. At full capacity, Telehouse will have invested over £280 million into its development.

Located close to the centre of London, Telehouse South is ideally positioned to serve businesses looking for low latency connectivity to London’s financial district. A network of 7,000 dark fibres, across two diverse routes, interconnects Telehouse South with the existing four data centres, offering unrivalled connectivity to a diverse ecosystem of over 1000 partners, including leading internet exchanges, cloud service providers, internet service providers and content service providers.

Telehouse South is powered solely by renewable energy procured from certified wind, solar, biomass, and hydro generators. The Telehouse South cooling design uses free cooling chillers with elevated water temperature, that use external ambient temperature to reject heat, rather than using a refrigeration process. This will allow Telehouse South to use free cooling throughout the year. A new intelligent control system will assist in improving efficiency, achieving energy savings and reducing PUE by monitoring, analysing and optimising cooling temperatures within the facility.

The facility does not use water for adiabatic cooling, eliminating reliance on natural resources and delivering a water usage efficiency (WUE) of zero for the building. Telehouse will be reusing the waste heat energy from the data halls to heat all other areas within the building.

The upgrade looks set to also bring more jobs to London and the surrounding area. Telehouse and Skanska will be deploying graduates and apprentices on the project, accompanied by skilled personnel to aid knowledge transfer.