Logistics firm Bulk has started work on a giant four square kilometre campus in southern Norway, with abundant power, multiple network connections - and an on-site recycling plant to support the data center lifecycle.

The NO1 campus near Kristiansand is being cleared, and already has power and networks to support multiple data centers, which can be supplied by Bulk or built by partners. The site has 400MW of power available, all from nearby hydroelectric sources, and the ability to expand almost indefinitely thanks to a major 3.6GW international power grid hub adjacent to the site. Bulk has connected 96 pairs of dark fiber to the site, and has agreements with eight network providers for data connectivity.

Cleaning up the cloud
As a logistics firm, Bulk has decided to use its expertise in building and updating sophisticated warehouses to the closely related area of providing upgradeable data center space, development director Mark Ruff explained to Datacenter Dynamics.

"We've a lot of experience in logistics platforms [warehouses]," Ruff told us. "We design buildings that are flexible and able to change throughout their lifetime. We like to simplify and build things that will perform."

Accordingly, NO1 will have a large number of comparatively small plots, where partners can put up their own buildings, or take them from Bulk, either empty or as white space.

Bulk can even offer fully populated data centers, as it has recently expanded into this market through the purchase of the venerable HMG9 data center in Oslo, Ruff explained.

Recycling included
The benefit of small buildings comes because Bulk recognises that data centers need to be completely refurbished every three to four years - and this is vastly harder in a large multi-tenant space.

"We see upgrades happening every three to four years," said Ruff. "There are racked up units coming in and out, and you need to have facility you can shut down completely."

This requirement is driving data centers towards smaller buildings, he said, which will include modular components, along the lines of the "flat-pack" racks in Facebook's Lulea 2 facility in the north of Sweden.

With tens of thousands of servers entering and leaving the site every three years or so, Ruff thinks one of the site's biggest selling points will be an industrial recycling plant right next door.
 

• "You need a secure route out for your servers where disks and chips can be removed," he said. "We have access to one of the largest recycling centers in Norway."
   

Climate and buildings
Unlike facilities further North, Kristiansand has a wet climate which is still cool enough for all-year free cooling, but without the difficulties of heavy snowfall, said Ruff.

The rainfall means that data centers can run adiabatic cooling units on the precipitation collected on their roofs.

The power avaliable can cost as little as €5 per MWh, and this is a stable price since Norway's utilities can play the local energy market. With plentiful hydro from its dams, they can buy in wind power from surrounding areas when it is cheap, allowing hydro power to be stored, and used when wind-power is less plentiful.

"The benefit of a large campus is that power can be smoothed," added Ruff.

The project has been formally announced today, and plots and buildings will become available in the next couple of years.