Construction Magazine April 2020 | Page 34

LEADERSHIP

34 that PUE ( Power Usage Effectiveness ) ratings are dropping . “ Annualised PUEs have reduced from 1.5 down to 1.2 due to the innovative deployment of energy efficient technology ,” he says . “ We are striving to achieve very low PUEs in warmer climates ; if your data centre is in Denmark 1.2 would be high , it should be 1.1 or even less .” Tolmie points out that the caveat here is that global standards differ from country to country with a range of operational requirements . “ We have to manage expectations within the sphere of the data centre design . We ’ re there for the first two years of a project ; we ’ re not there for the next 20 years .”

Tolmie is seeing a trend towards modular construction approaches on projects across the globe . “ We ’ re developing schemes with different clients who want to know what each 5MW IT chunk will look like . It ’ s modular to the point where you ’ ve got the data hall block and the MEP block ; that can be a continuous roll out or offer the flexibility to build gradually .” Tolmie adds that continuity is key , however different jurisdictions offer

unique challenges : “ It ’ s a key requirement we ’ re going to see more of , however , the challenge with this is repeatability . Our clients are always looking for repeatability and speed to market however you can only go so far because you can ’ t immediately pick up a building that ’ s designed for the UK and drop that design somewhere else in Europe or , indeed , Africa .” Atthis adds : “ It ’ s a continuous process of refinement where each project takes on the lessons learnt from the previous one .”

On the quest to break new ground

APRIL 2020