LONDON - 20 December 2011 - Six Degrees Group has won the "Improved Datacentre Energy Efficiency" award at the internationally recognised Datacentre Leaders Awards. The event was a hosted by DatacenterDynamics and featured more than 50 entrants from across EMEA. In addition to winning this award, Six Degrees Group was a finalist in the "Innovation in the Medium Data Centre" category for its newest data floor.

The winning entry was based on retrofit improvements made to data floors in Six Degrees Group's north and south datacentres in Studley that led to a 32% reduction in Power Usage Efficiency (PUE). Six Degrees Group undertook a series of innovative improvements to reduce energy consumption, including:
Six Degrees Group logo
Six Degrees Group logo

* Replacing air conditioning units with Ambicool free-cooling system

* Introducing indirect and direct evaporation cooling

* Replacing legacy CRAC fans

Together, these improvements reduced PUE by one-third from 1.85 to 1.26 and delivered a return on investment in less than 12 months.

Commenting on the award win, Daniel Lowe, managing director of Six Degrees Group's managed data services division, commented: "To win one award and be a finalist in another, making us the only company to be recognised in two categories, is a tremendous achievement. We've been able to achieve N+N resilience with PUE levels normally associated with N+1 datacentres. Our customers appreciate our efforts to improve energy efficiency as it bolsters our combined environmental credentials. Equally importantly, the savings we've made has meant we've been able to minimise the impact of supply-side increases in energy charges, saving our customers money."