About

Reuters news is seen by more than one billion people every day and its products used by 330,000 financial market professionals around the world. In the business critical location of the UK Data Centre, the close control units provide precise cooling to maintain accurate temperature and humidity within the air conditioned space. Continuous system operation requires total reliability at all times.

The challenge

The upgrade of the UK Data Centre required the renewal of seventy-four existing Precision Air Conditioning units spread over three computer floors. Being live computer rooms, replacement with complete units was ruled out. Reuters deemed unit refurbishment 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 PME, Reuters in-house M&E maintenance company, and with Reuters own engineering staff, to execute a refurbishment methodology and programme – AsNew, which would renew the old units by replacing out-of-date components with new, energy-efficient parts.
• Airedale was successful in its bid partly because it could offer Reuters the facilities to witness test, enabling Reuters to gauge improved performance from refurbishment.
• Phased refurbishment was carried out on a ‘one unit per floor’ basis over a period of thirteen months. All precautionary measures were taken by Airedale engineers, working very closely with Reuters staff throughout the period, to ensure continuous operation and to maintain room temperatures.
• The very latest controls technology was incorporated for increased reliability and tighter management control of the air conditioned space. Tighter control plus upgrading of most components has led to a 10% increase in cooling capacity.

“PME and Airedale worked well together with very close liaison. Given the sensitivity of the job and the potential for disruption, the project has gone really well. The Airedale engineers got into the swing of work over the thirteen months, and fully recognised the sensitivity of the areas in which they were working.”

John Payne, Project Manager – Reuters