The collaboration has delivered a state-of-the-art data centre cooling and management system that connects to Queen Mary’s district heating network.
Waste heat from the data centre is now reused to provide heating and hot water to university buildings and student accommodation—marking a significant step towards carbon reduction and long-term energy efficiency.
“The support we’ve had from APT and Schneider Electric has been unparalleled,” said Professor Jonathan Hays of Queen Mary.
“Both companies came together to help us develop an exciting and innovative project which would enable us to provision for the future. The biggest impact is that we were able to deliver on what we promised while improving our sustainability.”
The project not only boosts energy efficiency but enhances processing power, improves day-to-day reliability, and supports the university’s advanced research initiatives.
Queen Mary participates in the GridPP project, contributing to the analysis of data from high-energy physics experiments such as those at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.
With over 32,000 students and a rich academic heritage, including nine Nobel laureates, the university’s research infrastructure must meet demanding High Throughput Computing (HTC) requirements. However, its legacy data centre faced challenges including inefficient cooling and reliability issues.
To solve these, APT deployed Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure Row Data Centre solution, including APC NetShelter racks, NetBotz environmental monitoring, InRow cooling, and EcoStruxure Data Centre Expert software. The result is an energy-efficient, highly resilient platform with full real-time visibility and automated operations.
“The project at Queen Mary demonstrates how digital infrastructure can be a catalyst for net zero,” said Mark Yeeles, VP, secure power division, Schneider Electric UK & Ireland.
“By combining innovative engineering with sustainable data centre solutions, the university has developed an enhanced infrastructure platform that will meet its research computing requirements, while supporting its sustainability strategy.”
John Andrew, technical sales manager at APT added: “Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure Data Centre solutions were essential to help Queen Mary bring together its power, cooling, racks and management systems. This approach also created a platform to support its sustainability objectives via heat reuse, while enabling the university to act proactively and preventatively to intercept and remediate potential future issues.”
With the enhanced data centre now fully operational, Queen Mary plans to consolidate server equipment across its estate into the new facility, delivering further cost savings, increased resilience, and environmental benefits.
RELATED STORIES
