Vodafone UK

About

Vodafone UK is part of the world’s largest mobile community and its operations are focused on the provision of mobile phone services to global customers. Development of its core building structure has seen Vodafone UK invest in a new, UK-based world headquarters with upgrading of existing Data Centres.

 

The challenge

The upgrade of the Data Centre required the renewal of ten existing Airedale Precision Air Conditioning units. As the Data Centre was live, replacement with complete units was ruled out. Extracting the old units in a restricted space and installing complete units would have involved modifications to the floor and replacement of existing pipework involving hot work. Unit refurbishment was deemed to be less risky to the operation of the Data Centre, which would be live throughout the duration of the work.

 

Airedale solution

Airedale dedicated a team of engineers to work closely with JDP building services engineering consultants, to develop a refurbishment specification and programme – AsNew, for Vodafone UK which would renew the old units by replacing out-of-date components with new, energy-efficient parts, whilst retaining and recycling the cases which would easily satisfy the lifetime of the new components. Six of the units had full refurbishment, with all their components and condensing units replaced. Twelve condensing units were relocated to a new, purpose-built compound.

The very latest controls technology was incorporated for increased reliability and tighter management control of the air conditioned space. Six units were given a complete controls upgrade and four had their software updated.

Given the phasing out of R22 refrigerant, all units were upgraded to non-ozone depleting R407C, which is used as standard across Airedale’s entire product range.

 

“Reliability and the level of service that Airedale offer are key issues for a business critical location such as this. The project ran very smoothly.”

JDP building services