NorthC Datacenters, the largest regional data center provider in the Netherlands, has commenced construction of a new data center in Eindhoven. The new data center will have a total surface area of over 4,000m2 and will become operational in October 2023. This will be the second NorthC data center in the Eindhoven/Brabant region of The Netherlands, next to the existing data center at Eindhoven High Tech Campus (HTC), and the company’s twelfth facility in the country and the 17th in Europe.
Alexandra Schless, CEO of NorthC Datacenters: “The Eindhoven/Brabant region is one of the fastest growing innovation regions in the Netherlands and is a key region for companies developing new services for digital transformation. Our existing data center at the High Tech Campus Eindhoven is at capacity, which is why we are now building a second data center to serve both existing and new customers. During construction, we will focus achieving the highest levels of sustainability, in every possible way. This follows our ambition to be completely carbon neutral by 2030. In this way, we also support our customers in achieving their sustainability goals, as their IT environment will run significantly more efficient and sustainable in this data center than in an in-house data center.”
Hybrid generators
The new data center in Eindhoven will feature the latest technological innovations. For example, advanced emergency power generators that can run on green hydrogen as well as on natural gas. Ultimately, this will mean an annual emission reduction of 75 tons of CO2, compared to standard diesel generators. This is the equivalent to the annual carbon emissions of 37 passenger cars (averaging of 11,000 km per year, source: CBS). These hybrid generators ensure that this data center is ready to be connected to future infrastructure required for the transport, storage and use of green hydrogen.
Currently, the NorthC data center in Groningen (The Netherlands) is the only data center in Europe that uses advanced hydrogen fuel cells for backup power. Because the new data center in Eindhoven will be larger, the eventual savings in carbon emissions there will be greater.
Residual heat
NorthC also uses sustainable cooling installations that do not consume drinking water, and the new data center will be ready to exchange residual heat with other companies nearby. The permission process took into full account the municipality’s zoning plans and all applicable environmental regulations.
The new data center will be directly connected to the existing NorthC data center in Eindhoven and will also be connected to the NorthC’s Region Connect Ring, which links all data center locations via a dedicated high-speed fiber optic connection. The new NorthC data center in Eindhoven will have a power capacity of 4.5MW.
