365 Main Customers Pass On Natural-Gas-Powered Data Center

November 30, 2007

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365 Main, a data center developer and operator, wanted to build a new data center in Newark, Calif. fueled entirely by its own natural-gas-powered generators rather than relying on power from the local utility. Even though it wasn’t going to charge customers a premium for the cleaner energy option, it had to shelve the plans because customers weren’t willing to risk leasing space for fear of insufficient uptime, InfoWorld reports.The datacenter would have produced 78,500 tons of carbon emissions per year, rather than 99,000 were it powered by PG&E.

But companies were put off by the risk of downtime. The natural-gas-powered generators alone could deliver only a 94 percent guaranteed uptime. “While the combined reliability of the co-gen primary/utility backup solution would be higher than 94 percent – say 99.8 percent – customers didn’t like the co-gen option because it provided a less reliable primary energy source, Miles Kelly, VP of corporate Strategy says in the article. “Utility as primary is more reliable at 99 percent.”

Even though it didn’t go with natural-gas-powered generators, the company recently announced that the new data center in Newark is the first LEED-certified data center in the country in which customers can lease customizable private rooms from 5,000 to 30,000 square feet.

365 Main says all of its future data centers will meet LEED standards.

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