Th e University of Glasgow’s

Putting together a data centre to act as the base for some of the University of Glasgow’s IT infrastructure required

Stothers Building Engineering

Services to draw on all its electrical experience

BY DAVID ADAMS

University challenge

Data centres are to the modern age what coal and steam were to the industrial revolution. Th ey can also be hugely impressive facilities, on a technical level, if they have been constructed properly. Th e Saughfi eld Building at the University of Glasgow is one such data centre.

Built on the campus as part of a £1 billion redevelopment programme, it consists of a ‘black box’ building and a separate generator house surrounded by timber batons. It houses the university’s ScotGrid servers (used for a collaborative project between particle physicists and computer scientists in the UK and at CERN in Switzerland) and the IT infrastructure running the university’s physics, astronomy and IT departments. Th ere is space to accommodate any other systems the university may add.

Th is state-of-the-art, resilient facility relies on electrical and mechanical infrastructures built, installed, commissioned and tested by NICEIC registered fi rm Stothers Building Engineering Services. Stothers was founded in Belfast in 1957 by Denis Stothers to provide maintenance services to local businesses. Today it has a £40 million turnover, more than 100 staff and offi ces in Belfast, Glasgow and Warrington. It provides a comprehensive range of electrical, mechanical, technical and design services across the UK and Ireland, including offi ce and residential developments, prisons, hospitals and schools. Company Stothers Building Engineering Services Established 1957

Th e company had worked with the equipment, technologies and services installed, but had never needed to integrate all of them in one project, including systems supporting the IT equipment and management of the building’s other systems, from lighting to heating, cooling, emergency and resilience systems. As Stothers’s electrical director John Wilkins says: “It’s not every day we come across such a challenging project.”

PHYSICAL CONSTRAINTS

Th e company won the contract in mid-2018 and work began that September. It later won an additional bid to complete a second phase in the data centre’s second hall during 2019.

Th e key problem aff ecting the job was that access was via a narrow road, and deliveries could only be made at certain times. “We had to be very organised to avoid disruption to the day-today running of the university,” says Stothers’s electrical contracts manager Neil Alexander.

Th e project encompassed every aspect of the electrical and mechanical services within the building, starting with an extension of the university’s existing 11kV switchboard using two new circuit breakers. Stothers installed two fully rated oil-fi lled 11kV/400V 1600kVA transformers and two close-coupled 200A ring main units.

Inside, Stothers built a full LV power distribution system, including streamed UPS input and output switchboards, a UPS unit and batteries. All outgoing ways are protected by ACBs and MCCBs of various sizes, while automated transfer switches provide additional assurance.

Distribution boards are installed to distribute power for lighting, small power, specialised and mechanical services. In the two data halls, the distribution system is based on overhead busbars supplying the server racks, with A and B supplies provided to each rack via Type D MCB tap-off s. Energy use is metered and monitored.

Mains supply is backed up by a 1600kVA standby generator that can support the facility if necessary, powering LV switchboards in a supply failure and able to complete a soft transfer back to the mains at the end of an outage.

Step loads have been considered and will be managed via the mains generator control system and motorised breakers within the switchgear. Connections have been included within the main switchgear to allow for connection of a temporary set and load bank connection. Stothers also installed a full UPS solution to support power transfers for both electrical and mechanical loads without outages.

Installation of the standby generator presented a major challenge: it took some time to fi nd a supplier prepared to create a plan to install the equipment. In the end, DTGen and Ainscough Industrial Services supplied the generator to the site in sections, which were lowered in via crane before being rebuilt on site.

Other systems installed on-site include internal, external and emergency lighting systems, fi re detection, alarm and suppression systems, and security measures including alarms, CCTV and card/fob-based physical access control.

TESTING TIME

Following testing and fi nal commissioning of each of the individual systems, Stothers completed a programme of integrated systems testing, including testing resilience and ‘Th is was by far controls against various load and failure scenarios. the most complex “Everything was tested and tested installation of this again,” Neil explains. “Testing the switch gear took three days. I think kind that we’ve there were 12 to 15 people on site installed to date’ for the integrated systems testing: all around the building we had people who had to report back on everything happening as planned.” Planning, commissioning and testing also had to be coordinated with existing infrastructures. Stothers benefi ted from the cooperation and support of the university’s engineering and technical support teams. “It was good to involve them at an early stage,” says Neil. “We invited them to the site for a walkaround every couple of weeks. All they ever asked for was a few additional labels. From a technical point of view everything was accepted.” Th e project has left the team with great sense of satisfaction. “Th is was by far the most complex installation of this kind that we’ve installed to date,” says Neil. “We’re just proud of doing a really good job and leaving the client with something they can be happy with that will meet their needs £1bn for a long time to come.” David Adams is a freelance business journalist

The total value of the redevelopment programme at the university