Confidential Large Technology Client

Project Location: Western United States

ESD was retained by a large technology client building hyperscale data centers with the objective of reducing cost while still maintaining five-nine’s reliability with an additional focus on scalability and speed-to-market approach. At the time of the engagement, our client had over ten people continuously dedicated to Total Cost of Ownership, focusing on a catcher block electrical design. We developed multiple electrical design comparisons and migrated our client from a catcher block design to a distributed design configuration.

The new design eliminated the static switch configuration, which is costly, however the largest savings was in the utility configuration. A catcher block design requires two utility feeds to achieve five nines, whereas a distribution design only requires one utility feed. While the utility cost was not considered in their overall cost per MW, the business savings was very considerable due to the elimination of an additional 180MW secondary utility feed to the campus. ESD provided all disciplines in house including detailed cost estimating.