London-based Virtus Data Centres has shaved extra points off its power usage efficiency (PUE) rating by installing an indirect cooling system at its data center in Hayes, west London.

The London2 facility is using Excool – a brand of indirect air cooling technology as part of an intelligent design environment.

The Excool system was chosen for its ease of use, according to a statement from Virtus, but there proved to be other operational savings on top of quick installation, user friendliness and easy maintenance.

The Excool system has minimized the amount of energy required to run its cooling system, while maximizing the amount of IT power available to customers.

Excool uses indirect adiabatic and evaporative cooling technology, adding moisture to outdoor air to cool the data center.

In addition, indirect ‘air to air’ heat exchange techniques ensure the external and internal data center atmospheres never meet, which prevents losses through contamination.

Virtus pledged that it will pass the benefits of these savings on to its clients in the form of cheaper service charges.

Excool’s modular system allowed Virtus to build its cooling infrastructure by increments, adding units in direct proportion to the number of racks and cabinets customers buy.

This, according to Virtus, has been the key to minimizing costs, as the cooling system become closely mapped to the IT infrastructure and units are not over allocated.

Virtus’s CEO Neil Cresswell said as customers’ ramp up or lower their computing capacity, the company will be able to offer a proportionate response.

“The deployment of Excool technology shows we are serious about our green credentials,” Cresswell said.

Excool’s director Mark Collins said Excool technology reduces the risk, cost and energy consumption of future data center cooling systems.

“Excool is a tried and tested method that will provide Virtus customers with a system that uses less power and is more cost effective than existing methods,” Collins said.