We'll be officially launching this new service on International Data Centre Day March 25th 2026!
Carbon3IT Ltd working with Kaizen Energy can now offer a data centre 'Fit for 40' assessment service, more information below.
Contact us on info@carbon3it.com with 'Fit For 40' in the subject line for more information.
We are looking for some pilot sites for the service, so if you'd like to get a reduced cost assessment put 'pilot for FF40' in the subject line. Terms & Conditions Apply!
Background
In July 2022, the UK’s Met Office issued its first red warning for extreme heat since the introduction of the Extreme Heat National Weather Warning Service in June 2021. A red warning indicates that adverse health effects are expected for people beyond those considered most vulnerable.
In July 2022, the UK’s Met Office issued its first ever red warning for extreme heat, predicting adverse health effects for more than just the most vulnerable people.
The UK Health Security Agency and Met Office also released a level 4 alert for the first time since the heatwave plan was implemented for England in 2004, leading to the government declaring a national emergency.
In the same year the UK experienced heatwaves in June, July, and August, making it the country's warmest year since records began in 1884. That year also saw `tropical nights’ across the UK, which is when nighttime temperatures stay above 20°C.
The highest minimum nighttime temperature ever recorded in the UK was 26.8°C, observed in Oxfordshire in July 2020. This surpassed the previous 1990.record of 23.9°C set in Brighton.
If nighttime temperatures sounds great but can it cause homes to quickly overheat as the majority of UK homes do not have air conditioning.
According to the Met Office, studies have shown that increased nighttime temperatures are associated with higher mortality rates, particularly in elderly populations and those with existing health concerns.
Building structures, including roofs and floors, absorb significant heat from solar radiation. This phenomenon is known as the Urban Heat Island, which results in local higher ambient temperatures.
If ambient nighttime temperatures remain warm it means equipment and plantrooms can struggle to cool down which can effect performance
High air-on temperatures can significantly reduce cooling equipment performance and may cause system high pressure trips.
During the UK's record-breaking July 2022 heatwave, the ' Hawaiian Triangle' of Sheffield, Nottingham, and Wakefield experienced three consecutive tropical nights, marking a significant milestone in the country’s climate history, with Sheffield reaching its highest overnight temperature on record at 20.5°C.
Traditionally many UK regions experience lower ambient temperatures and refrigeration systems in Scotland and Wales were designed based on peak temperatures of 25 °C.
But in 2022 several regions in the UK not normally associated with high ambient temperatures broke records including North Yorkshire at 39°C. Hawarden Airport in Wales hit 37.1°C and the Scottish Borders hit 34.8°C
In August 2022, a drought was officially declared in numerous regions, coinciding with nearly 25,000 wildfires reported nationwide.
Network Rail issued a 'do not travel' advisory as severe disruptions affected rail services due to buckled tracks and sagging overhead cables. Flights were suspended at Luton Airport after high temperatures compromised the runway. In regions such as Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and the North East, gritters deployed sand on certain roads when surfaces began to melt.
The heat caused a surge in 999 calls, strained care services for the elderly and vulnerable, and likely led to more heat-related deaths.
Several fire services declared major incidents following the outbreak of multiple fires. Numerous homes were destroyed in Wennington, east London, and Maltby, Rotherham, while a nursery was damaged in Milton Keynes.
Cases of cooling system failures were reported in the news, mainly focusing on shops where customers had alerted the media about the issue.
So serious are these issues that in August 2025, global experts gathered at Manchester University to discuss how rising temperatures could impact UK cooling systems.
This event was the world’s first to focus on how cooling systems and the industry can adapt to rising temperatures. It took place alongside the release of new weather data from The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE).
While mainly intended for building performance analysis, the data also covers UK climate projections for the next 50 years and can help support energy use and overheating risk assessments.
What Happens when it goes wrong
Most cooling systems will perform with no issues and appear to be operating well, high ambient temperatures and an increase in the cooling load can highlight any issues with cooling systems.
This can be increased space temperatures or the refrigeration may complete fail.
When a failure occurs, all refrigeration service providers are contacted for an urgent site visit. Providers must then triage the large volume of requests.
On the 19th July 2022 as forecast the previous week London experienced record-breaking high temperatures reaching 40°C and over the course of the day, the two separate Hospitals data centres suffered failures associated with the heatwave.
To further complicate matters, in the event of a failure each data centre was designed to serve as a backup for the other. However, when both data centres experienced simultaneous outages, the intended redundancy was not achieved.
Clinical IT systems at Guy’s, St Thomas’, Evelina Hospitals, and related community services were down for nearly three days.
As a public body the hospital conducted an investigation and in January 2023, Dr Ian Abbs, CEO of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, released a full report.
The report noted that due to the IT failure, one patient was unable to undergo an organ transplantation when suitable donor organs became available. At the time of reporting, no deaths had been directly linked to the incident; however, two cases remained under investigation.
The IT outage affected 371 clinical and non-clinical IT systems. As a result, clinicians did not have access to patient medical records, electronic prescriptions could not be created or dispensed, tests or investigations could not be ordered, and electronic inpatient and outpatient notes were not recorded.
The NHS review determined that the data centre outages were both preventable and could have been avoided had the data centres been adequately prepared for the record temperatures.
Several of the systems were engineered for a maximum ambient temperature of 32°C, and initial concerns regarding the cooling mechanisms were identified as early as August 2018.
During the six-week restoration period, hundreds of appointments were missed, delaying patients' access to essential care.
The £1.4 million cost assessment includes unbudgeted IT expenses related to retaining a third-party data recovery service that helped pull information from servers which were damaged in the outage. Additionally, the hospitals needed to institute a cloud-based data backup system to replace the legacy solutions that were in operation during the outage.
The fear of bad publicity means private companies are not prepared to acknowledge their failings which can mask the real number of failures. It also takes away the valuable opportunities to learn.
Cases of cooling system failures were reported in the news, mainly focusing on shops where customers had alerted the media about the issue.
We know of other failures that were not unreported, one major food companies production was halted for four days because the refrigeration systems failed and safe space temperatures were compromised.
The interruption in production resulted in financial losses amounting to millions of pounds, tonnes of food were sent to landfill and adversely affected the company's reputation.
All these failures could have been avoided and in many cases without significant cost.
Fit for 40 – A vital new service for data centres
Fit for 40 will give an independent assessment on the operation of your refrigeration/cooling systems and predict how the systems will operate as the temperature increase.
We will provide system performance data including cooling capacity at a range of ambient temperatures and what can be done to improve resilience.
As part of the process, it will look at system integrity and single points of failure, with recommendations for holding spares which would mitigate the risk.
To meet these higher ambient temperature, it does not always need a costly total system replacement and the process will look at all cost effective solutions.
Fit for 40 will also list any opportunities to improve system efficiency and calculate the potential savings from any interventions.
This process is designed to be truthful and honest.
This service is intended neither to market new systems nor to encourage a change of service providers.