Internet Villages International plans to build the world's first green powered data farm on the outskirts of Lockerbie in Dumfriesshire, Scotland.
On a 140 acre site, the data farm will consist of approximately 20 data centers, which accommodate computer systems or servers. Increasingly businesses and public sector organisations are moving these facilities out of their offices and into separate purpose-built data centers where the equipment is maintained under optimum conditions and managed by specialists.
Several Fortune 500 multi-national companies have already expressed interest in the Lockerbie Data Farm.
By completion the Lockerbie Data Farm will provide 3 million square feet of data storage, so will be the largest of its kind in the world.
Work on the data farm is expected to start in 2008 and be completed by 2010. Organisations locating their data center at the Lockerbie Data Farm will be able to declare significant carbon reductions as well as making major cost savings.
Lockerbie Data Farm buildings will be purpose-built for client organisations, so improving energy efficiency.
Renewable energy will be sourced from the nearby E-On UK biomass power station, the largest such power station in the UK, and from existing and planned wind generation in Dumfries and Galloway.
Data centers are usually built in urban areas or business parks and the considerable waste heat produced is vented to the atmosphere. In contrast, the waste heat from the Lockerbie Data Farm will provide low cost heating to a planned adjacent eco internet village and to local horticultural businesses. This project represents a world first for Scotland.