Schneider Electric has announced it is extending its strategic partnership with Terra Cloud (Wortmann AG), one of Germany’s key regional colo data centre operators, to accelerate its sustainability commitments.
To-date, Terra Cloud has utilised a turnkey solution from Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure for Data Centres portfolio, which enables it to drive energy efficiency across its campus. As part of its net zero strategy, it plans to transition to 100 per cent renewable power, provided by onshore wind and solar photovoltaics (PV), and will test the benefits of chassis-level immersion liquid cooling technology in a new proof of concept.
Terra Cloud, part of Wortmann AG, operates a highly resilient and fault-tolerant five MW data centre in Hüllhorst, North-West Germany. Its facilities deliver a wide range of mission-critical services to cloud and small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) organisations, including colocation and hosting, Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), storage, Disaster Recovery (DR) and back-up.
By developing a strategic partnership with Schneider Electric, it has implemented one of the region’s most energy efficient colocation data centres and has seen accelerated demand from both partners and customers for its cloud and hosted services during the last ten years. Now with energy costs across the region surging, it has seen a key opportunity to drive operational and energy efficiency across its data center, which has traditionally seen customers benefit from a 20 to 30 per cent cost saving when moving into its hosted facilities.
To ensure the highest levels of resiliency and efficiency, Terra Cloud was the first colocation provider in Europe to deploy Schneider Electric’s Galaxy VL uninterruptible power supply (UPS) with Lithium-ion batteries – using its patented eConversion mode to deliver 99 per cent efficiency without compromising availability. The company also refurbishes and recycles the technology at its data centres, to ensure servers and infrastructure components can be used in second life applications.
Now, they utilise Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure for Data Centers architecture to enable greater efficiency. This includes APC NetShelter SX racks and PDU’s, low and medium-voltage switchgear, InRow cooling and Uniflar Chillers, alongside EcoStruxure IT Data Center Expert and Data Center Operations DCIM, with an integrated Building Management System (BMS), for real-time insights and monitoring.
As part of its new sustainability strategy, it plans to harness the power of onshore wind and solar, transitioning from a mix of 80 per cent renewable and 20 per cent finite resources, to become powered by 100 per cent renewable energy. Further, by working with Schneider Electric, it will build a proof of concept to test the energy efficiency and sustainability benefits of chassis-level immersion liquid cooling technology.
“At Terra Cloud, our core values have always been based on resilience, efficiency, and industry-leading service, and it is incumbent upon us to continue to raise the bar in terms of energy and sustainability,” said Martin Klein, CEO, Terra Cloud, (Wortmann AG). “By working with Schneider Electric, we will pilot the use of liquid cooling to seek greater efficiencies, and work with our local ecosystem to ensure that our power provision is as reliable, renewable, and sustainable as possible.”
“Resilience, efficiency, and sustainability have become focal points of our industry, and it is vital that we explore all possibilities to reach net zero,” said Vincent Barro, VP, Secure Power Division, Schneider Electric DACH. “From inception, we have partnered with Terra Cloud to support the technical design and efficiency requirements of their campus, and we are delighted to develop our partnership further, as they make this important next step on their sustainability journey.”
