Is this the most secure, most efficient data centre in the world
Deep inside the Mountains on the island of Rennesøy NATO built a large, high security ammunition store for the North Atlantic fleet. A 100 m long upward sloping access tunnel leads to the large concrete buildings that were constructed inside the mountian.
When NATO left the Norwegian site 4 years ago the Smedvig Office family Investment company started the planning to refit the entire site into a high security data centre, located on the shores of the island of Rennesøy, with concrete buildings deep within the caves carved out of the mountain.
Green Mountain offers:- security, reliable power, A remarkably low PUE, low cost readily available cooling, low fire risk,
The fashion for building in the Northern hemisphere, Norway, Iceland and Sweden has eliminated the high cost of electricity to power chillers, but added to this using hydro-electric power, and water -cooling, the data-centre is able to eliminate two major problems.
Built into the ready made ammunition hideaway, with 22,000 square metres available for the racks of servers which will now fill the underground halls that once stored ammunition for NATO. This data-centre has probably the world’s lowest PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness ) rating and with a practically non-existent carbon footprint. The building, housed inside a mountain on an island in a fjord, was for many years kept secret during the cold war but is now missile and mine free. Security is also up to NATO standards.
Green Mountain’s cooling system taps the fjord for a steady supply of water at 8 degrees C this is the optimal temperature for use in data center cooling systems, chilled water is a key component of any data centre cooling systems. The water is often supplied by chillers, large refrigeration units that require a huge amount of electricity to operate.