We note the recent announcement by the new Labour Government regarding the recall of 2 planning applications for new data centres in Iver and Abbots Langley more information on this link.
Whilst we welcome, in principle new digital infrastructure, we advise caution and ask the government to consider the following elements in any new 'data centre' strategy.
Planning Guidance is weak, there is no information available on the Government Planning Portal and data centres are classified as being either B8 Storage & Distribution or 'Sui Generis' or in simple terms 'of themselves'. This essentially means that potential data centre builders do NOT have to consider, for instance the use of the EN 50600 series of data centre, design, build and operate standards, or indeed the use of the ISO/IEC 30134 Data Centre Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), there is not, for instance, any requirement to use the waste heat or to use the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres (Energy Efficiency) best practices, these elements should be mandatory for all new builds. There is also absolutely NO guidance on matters pertaining to sustainability and whilst the sector does incorporate some sustainability aspects into its designs, this is by no means widespread and operators should use the EN 50600-5-1:2023 Data Centre Maturity Model standard for design matters and consider being certified to the Technical Specification.
For too long, data centre operators have sought to base themselves in the London and the South East, this is a strategic and dare I say, a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery error, especially in the light of a potential new 'cold war'.
Data Centres are quite rightly now being considered as Critical National Infrastructure but are not architected as such, power station assets are not concentrated in one area, ports and airports are spread across the country, telephone exchanges are distributed liberally throughout the nation, data centres should be too, we would recommend a 'hub and spoke' approach, place data centre infrastructure according to a spatial strategy.
Sustainability is going to be a key point moving forward and we recommend the use of Sustainable Construction materials such as CLT, BioCretes and plant based walls and panels for data centre buildings.
All new 'masterplanning' for the new towns and industrial areas need to reserve space for digital infrastucture and we welcome the opportunity to discuss with developers and architectures how to design sustainable and energy efficient data centres for the 21st Century.
There needs to be an office within Government, and we note that the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) appears to be taking a prominent role, that deals with all data centre matters and provides a single point of contact for regulatory matters, there needs to be a forward direct investment strategy with a 'landing strip' approach, government should be able to provide or identify suitable sites, with renewable energy, and the associated supporting infrastructure, fibre connectivity, district heating or other uses of waste heat, service companies etc.
Speaking of heat, perhaps operators should look at the reuse of the data centre waste during design, there are now plenty of opportunities to use heat for secondary purposes, such as district heating, low level industrial heat, pre-heating, aquaculture, horticulture etc, DC designers should be looking at all opportunities to participate in the this circular economy concept.
On the matter of regulation and legislation, the UK needs to adopt similar legislation to that already in place in the EU namely, the Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act, including the Assessment Framework, the Energy Efficiency Directive and its associated data centre delegated act to collect energy and other environmental data, this could be acheived by simply amending the existing Climate Change Agreement, extending the provisions to all data centres located in the UK and reducing the threshold for compliance reporting to 100kW.
Finally, in order to assist in the development of new datacentres, there needs to be a specific strategy for skills and training, the industry is struggling globally, facing significant short term challenges (the grey tsunami, where 50% of the existing personnel will be retiring by 2030) and longer term challenges with attracting more people with skills into the industry, existing apprenticeship schemes do not cover all the necessary skills for data centre engineering being primarily focused on specific skills such as electrical, mechanical and information technology, this needs to be addressed, and we note that the Tech UK Data Centre Skills working group as well as other initatives are in progress, this needs to be have government support and backing.
To this end, we have recently signed the lease for the National Data Centre Academy, this is to be a practical skills training centre, a showcase of energy efficient and sustainable products and research hub, detailed design work for the 'sandbox technical areas' is currently underway and we have had offers for free equipment, we will probably need more, so if you're in a position to help that would be wonderful.
Please note that the NDCA website contains historical information and is in the process of being updated, we'll advise when the new site is live, in the meantime please visit our Linked In Page here
Once the final design is set, we'll post our 'shopping list' and hope that you'll help out, this initative is 'For the sector, by the sector' to train 'tomorrows digital technicians'.
The National Data Centre Academy is supported by Innovate UK Business Growth, Coventry and Warwickshire Growth Hub and the Data Centre Alliance and we are grateful for their assistance.