Work is now well underway on the building of a new 12 MVA substation at London’s Perivale Data Centre. The substation is fed from the national grid by two dual resilient 11kV feeds, either of which will be capable of supplying the full 12 MVA load.

Perivale One is the first data centre to have gained planning permission — and now power — on the 20 acre site in West London, owned by Hermes Real Estate Investment Management Limited (HREIML). HREIML intends for the Perivale Park site to become a major data centre in this strategic, well powered, and highly connected location.

Jane Rampin of Bracknell and Perivale Data Centres said, “Assembling the essential infrastructure elements for a data centre is costly and time consuming. Securing 12 MVA of power and facilitating its delivery to site has been a critical step in bringing Perivale Data Centre to fruition. This success demonstrates HREIML’s commitment to the scheme and our ability to deliver.”

HREIML is working in partnership with GCE Data Centres to deliver phase one, a purpose built two storey data centre at Perivale Park. This phase, which already has full planning consent, is offered for lease as a 30,000 sq ft powered shell, translating to some 15,000 sq ft of net technical space. With the new substation build running to plan, it is expected that the site will be energised next month.

David Willcocks, Director, Jones Lang LaSallecommented, “Opting for a powered shell data centre solution can shorten a clients’ build time by two years. HREIML and GCE have already done all the time consuming and expensive works to identify a site with plenty of power and fibre connectivity, drawn up plans and obtained full planning consent. The picture is complete with 12 MW of power, secured and delivered.”

A data centre needs connectivity as well as power and HREIML, in conjunction with GCE, has at least ten high profile carriers poised to bring fibre into the Perivale Data Centre. These include BT, Colt Telecom, CWW, EasyNet, Geo Networks, Global Crossing, Redstone, SSE (Neos), Verizon Business, and Virgin Media.

Low latencies are important to a successful data centre and the sites strategic location, between the City and Slough and inside the M25 ensures that they remain low.

The partnership also brought forward another powered shell data centre scheme at Bracknell, in the heart of the Thames Valley region, one of the UK’s primary tech hubs. A 78,000 sq ft powered shell scheme, Bracknell Data Centre is now available with high levels of connectivity, planning consent and 10MWA of power and is also about to be energised.

Jones Lang LaSalle and GVA Connect are joint lettings agents on the scheme.