International online hosting company PEER 1 Hosting has started to build a 50,000 sq ft ‘green’ data center on the southern coastline of the UK, a location it said is ideal for free cooling.
 

PEER 1 is planning to base the design on the blue-print for its modular data center in Toronto, Canada, but said it expects its Portsmouth location, in Havant, to be better suited to free cooling despite its warmer temperatures.
 

PEER 1 CFO Gary Sherlock said it hopes to achieve 100% free cooling at the new site 45 to 50% of the time once the facility is built. On average, PEER 1 predicts free cooling will be able to be used 85% of the time, adding significant savings to power costs.
 

"Based on recent meteorological data for Portsmouth and running comparisons with Toronto, we think we can actually get more free cooling in Portsmouth," Sherlock said. "The ambient temperature outside is generally lower than that in Toronto."
 

Toronto has average temperatures that range between 26C to -7C while Portsmouth’s rage from 21C to 5C, but average out in between and rarely get below zero.
 

The initial cost of the phase one build is expected to be £10m.
 

Portsmouth, in Hampshire, is hours outside of London and has the UK’s second largest population, a Naval base and, according to Sherlock, cheaper real estate.
 

PEER 1 VP of Data Center Operations Ryan Murphy said the first phase of the build will be carried out by a Texas firm, Evolve, with local contractors where possible. It will feature four PODS in a 50,000 sq ft shell. Each will house 1,020 normal cabinet equivalents for colocation and 10,000 servers for managed and dedicated hosting. 
 

PEER 1 is also using two 350 tonne chillers from Trane in Toronto, for the Portsmouth build – one of which will be for redundancy – and is expected to add another other capacity is required.

Airside economizers are being used for the free cooling, also by Trane.
 

It is looking to use 500 KVA uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs) instead of 750 for better scaling inside the POD and is considering using Caterpillar generators and Emerson’s NXL series  of UPSs as well as Eaton’s 95.95 series, which Murphy said appeals because of its economy mode.
 

"We are exploring more energy efficient options for Portsmouth as well as further space saving options for PDUs and UPSs," Murphy said.
 

Peer 1 has 17 data centers and 10 colocation facilities throughout North America and Europe offering managed hosting, dedicated servicers, cloud services and colocation.
 

Sherlock said it had a number of US-based customers interested in building out services to Europe that did not require to be in a city center.
 

Portsmouth is about two hours drive south of London.
 

According to Sherlock, the build is expected to reach double its capacity by 2015.