Cleaning House: Telehouse Reduces CO2 Footprint, Sources 100 Percent Renewable Energy

Telehouse—a major carrier-neutral colocation provider based in Docklands, London—is now using 100 percent renewable energy at its headquarters data center, which houses the IT infrastructure of nearly 500 major global organizations.

The power provider is SmartestEnergy, a 10-year-old firm that has become the U.K.’s leading purchaser and supplier of electricity from independent generators. Thus, energy for the Telehouse data center is being sourced from a variety of projects—among them, wind, solar, hydropower, and anaerobic digestion.

For Telehouse, the move to renewable energy represents yet another way in which the company is reducing its carbon footprint. Last February, Telehouse’s two London sites were awarded the Carbon Trust Standard—an independent certification recognizing organizations that have measured, managed, and reduced their operational carbon emissions, and are committed to doing so year-over-year. Telehouse U.K. received the award after improving its carbon efficiency by 12 percent.

Some of the energy efficiency initiatives completed to attain the Carbon Trust (News - Alert) Standard in Telehouse’s Docklands and Metro sites, include:

• Replacing air conditioning units at sites, resulting in an estimated annual reduction of 127 tons CO2e, as well as annual savings of nearly $47,000 and
• Switching off corridor lighting in technical buildings when not in use, resulting in an estimated annual CO2 reduction of 45 tons CO2e, as well as annual savings of over $15,700.

According to Tokuji Mitsui, managing director of Telehouse and KDDI (News - Alert) Europe (both units of Japanese parent company KDDI Corporation), the move to renewable energy was the natural next step on the green agenda: “The biggest challenge we face at Telehouse is to improve our energy efficiency and reduce our carbon footprint, and in order to support this challenge Telehouse has worked closely with industry leading partners and regulators. We are committed to our environmental responsibilities and continue to work to align our business strategy with our green ethics wherever possible.”

He added, “The majority of electricity supplied to us is utilized by our clients; therefore it is integral that we take on initiatives such as the 100 percent green energy supply, which in turn benefits our customer’s credentials by reducing their carbon footprint. We intend to roll out this green partnership initiative with SmartestEnergy to all our European sites in the near future.”