Schneider Electric has announced that Tech Vault, Inc., a commercial data center in Burlington, VT, has selected Schneider Electric to design and help bring to life the most efficient data center in New England. Schneider Electric’s APC brand solutions including InRow cooling, Symmetra UPS and InRow Remote Power Modules were installed to improve energy efficient delivery of power in the data center.

“We pursued Schneider Electric initially because of their industry-leading cooling technology offerings from APC,” said Bob Stewart, vice president for IT of Tech Vault. “APC opened the door to Schneider Electric, a complete energy solution provider for our data center. The facility soup to nuts is a Schneider Electric house, and we are really happy about that. After a year of planning and design collaboration with the Schneider Electric team we began construction on the facility. Within four months we completed the full installation enabling us to open on time and in large part because of their energy-efficient solutions, we hope to join a small and distinguished group of LEED certified data centers in the United States.”

The Tech Vault data center also uses Square D electrical switchgear and distribution panels exclusively throughout the facility, Pelco security hardware, cameras and software to handle all security systems, functionality and monitoring, and it has also incorporated Schneider Electric’s Continuum One controls hardware/software system to monitor and manage the data center in its entirety. A Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) chart and data collection is designed into the Continuum One software which allows Tech Vault to monitor PUE for any time given time range including hourly, daily, weekly and monthly. As a result, data center managers can further hone energy efficiency by understanding the behavior of the facility while it is in operation and obtain optimal performance.

“Data centers use significant amounts of energy for daily operation, especially when it comes to cooling the massive computer servers needed to process the data in such an environment,” said Rob McKernan, president, Americas Region, IT Business, Schneider Electric. “By leveraging Schneider Electric’s full range of energy efficient solutions, Tech Vault can now offer companies a safe, reliable and energy-efficient environment, a critical combination for companies with data hosting or disaster recovery computing needs. Best of all, environmentally-conscious companies will recognize the value in this significant reduction of their carbon footprint. Tech Vault’s data center is a perfect example of how a multitude of Schneider Electric brands work together to help with every aspect of a facility’s energy efficiency strategy, design and implementation.”

Tech Vault’s Stewart also added, “Schneider Electric has been a true partner in this project. They were involved with some of our earliest discussions around data center design layouts, and we look forward to continued collaboration. There has been demand in Vermont for quite some time for an energy efficient data center, and we’re pleased to address this critical infrastructural need and help drive energy efficient and effective practices across the state. With the energy saving solutions from Schneider Electric, we can provide additional value to our customers by providing a safe, reliable and energy efficient location to house their critical IT networks.”

Tech Vault is pursuing LEED Gold certification for Data Centers, a daunting challenge given how much energy data centers typically use. LEED Gold certification is the second-highest achievable level based on the rating system of a total possible 110 points (100 points and 10 bonus points), and indicates a facility has met 60 plus points in the following categories: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources and indoor environmental quality. The bonus points are awarded for innovation in design and regional priority. The LEED program, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, is an internationally-recognized green building certification, providing third-party verification of environmental stewardship.