IX AFRICA
To the north of Nairobi - near the Ethiopian border - Kenya is home to the biggest wind farm in Africa , which generates 350 MW of power used extensively to meet the city ’ s energy needs .
In addition to making use of the region ’ s favourable climate and green energy reserves , NRB01 is built to a high , international sustainability standard that echoes the green construction techniques used throughout other markets where green design is a high priority , like the US and Europe . “ We ' ve chosen to use adiabatic chilled water cooling for our campus , which allows us to achieve a very good PUE of 1.25 . The adiabatic cooling systems also have the option of functioning even if there ' s a shortage of water - in which case they can switch over to working as DX cooling units that chill the servers with air instead ,” Martineau explains . significantly ,” he says . “ At night , especially during the Winter months , it can get down to around 12 ° C at night and be between 14 ° C and 16 ° C degrees in the daytime . As soon as the external temperature gets down below 16 ° C , we switch off the condensers and do free cooling , which helps us save even more energy .”
The other key to NRB01 ’ s impressive sustainability credentials is Kenya ’ s national grid . “ The country is very advanced in terms of green power ,” Martineau explains , adding that Nairobi itself already gets about 85-90 % of its energy from renewables . “ There ' s some hydro , as well as a lot of geothermal plants serving the region . There ' s a lot of volcanic activity in Kenya , so there ' s a lot of superheated water under the ground , which is used to power heat pumps ,” he continues . “ There ' s also a lot of wind power .”
Keeping it Africa From construction to team building , IXAfrica ’ s strategy is to leverage local talent and expertise rather than rely on importing staff and equipment from overseas . “ A big pillar of this project is to Keep it Africa . Instead of importing , we look at what we can do in Kenya , and then - if not in Kenya - we look at East Africa and then to Africa as a whole . We ' re trying to import as little as possible from outside the continent ,” says Martineau . In addition to the obvious sustainability benefits of cutting down on foreign imports , IXAfrica is also using its emphasis on local resources to reduce costs across the business at this critical phase . “ The level of construction expertise and skill in Kenya itself is very good . There are infrastructure companies here that have been building towers for the telecom industry for decades , so a lot of our building and technology needs are being met with local talent ,” he adds . datacentremagazine . com 77