Data centres house a dense concentration of sensitive equipment, creating a unique fire risk profile. Here, we explore emerging fire safety technologies that are helping UK data centres mitigate risk and ensure business continuity.
But with great power comes great responsibility. Data centres house a dense concentration of sensitive equipment, creating a unique fire risk profile. Here, we explore emerging fire safety technologies that are helping UK data centres mitigate risk and ensure business continuity.
Data centres come in all shapes and sizes. Small, on-premises server rooms cater to individual businesses, while colossal hyperscale data centres, owned by tech giants like Google and Amazon, sprawl across vast campuses. These hyperscale facilities often exceed the size of several football pitches and house millions of servers – generating immense heat and requiring sophisticated cooling systems.
The UK government is actively encouraging the construction of new data centres, recognising their vital role in the digital economy. Major projects currently underway include a £1 billion hyperscale facility in Wales by HPE, and a £700 million data centre development in Greater Manchester by Equinix.
While hyperscale data centres dominate the headlines, the UK data centre landscape also encompasses a diverse range of smaller facilities catering to various needs.
These data centres offer shared space for businesses to house their own IT equipment. They are ideal for businesses that lack the resources or expertise to build and maintain their own data centres.
These smaller, geographically distributed facilities are designed to process data closer to its source, reducing latency for applications that require real-time responsiveness.
Many businesses, particularly smaller ones and including universities, maintain their own server rooms on-site. While not technically "data centres," these facilities still require robust fire safety measures to protect critical IT infrastructure.
These self-contained, portable units provide temporary or emergency data centre capacity. They are often used for events, disaster recovery situations, or in remote locations where permanent facilities are impractical.
The responsibility for fire safety in a data centre ultimately rests with the building owner or operator. This means they must comply with stringent regulations set out in the Building Safety Act 2022. These regulations encompass fire risk assessments, fire safety measures, and the maintenance of fire safety systems.
Data centre operators often partner with specialist fire safety companies who can design, install, and maintain fire protection systems. These systems should be tailored to the specific risks of the facility, considering the type and density of equipment, as well as the cooling methods employed.
Robust fire safety measures can significantly impact data centre insurance premiums. Insurance companies will consider a facility's fire risk assessment, fire protection systems, and incident history when determining coverage and cost. By prioritising fire safety, data centre operators can not only safeguard their critical infrastructure but also achieve greater financial security through potentially lower insurance costs.
Despite all the precautions, fires can still occur in data centres. Common causes include:
Overloaded circuits, faulty wiring, and overheating equipment can all spark electrical fires.
Accidental damage to equipment during maintenance or improper disposal of flammable materials can ignite a fire.
Leaks in cooling systems can lead to electrical short circuits, while inadequate cooling can cause equipment to overheat.
These batteries, increasingly used for backup power, pose a unique fire risk if damaged or not properly stored.
A notable example of a data centre fire incident occurred in Strasbourg, France in 2021. The catastrophic fire broke out at one of OVHcloud’s four data centres, where the blaze destroyed the European cloud service provider’s SBG2 data centre, a 2-megawatt facility that housed around 30,000 servers. It also caused partial damage to the neighbouring SBG1 facility, which was subsequently decommissioned and dismantled.
The incident, which is estimated to have cost OVHcloud over €105 million, affected approximately 65,000 customers. Many experienced significant service interruptions, and the incident resulted in permanent data loss for numerous companies. All this damage was caused by an electrical fault triggering the fire which took firefighters hours to extinguish, disrupting critical services across Europe. Thankfully however, no one was hurt.
This incident highlights the importance of robust fire safety measures and rapid response protocols for such important infrastructure.
Delving deeper into fire detection and prevention building owners and responsible persons may want to investigate the following devices as part of their fire safety system. In UK and European data centres, a combination of the following devices is often used to create a layered fire detection system, offering comprehensive protection against various fire types.
This innovative system uses finely atomised water droplets to extinguish fires quickly and efficiently. HPWM offers several advantages over traditional sprinkler systems. It uses significantly less water, minimising potential damage to sensitive equipment. Additionally, the smaller water droplets are less likely to cause electrical shorts.
These systems replace oxygen in the atmosphere with inert gases, effectively smothering the fire. While effective, they can be expensive and pose a risk to personnel caught in the discharge zone.
Dedicated fire suppression systems are being developed specifically for lithium-ion battery storage areas. These systems use specialised extinguishing agents that are effective against battery fires.
This advanced system actively draws in air samples through a network of pipes and analyses them for even the smallest particles of smoke. This allows for faster detection of fires, particularly smouldering electrical fires that may not produce large amounts of visible smoke.
These devices use a light source emitter and a photoelectric receiver to detect the presence of smoke. They are particularly sensitive to slow-burning fires that produce thick, white smoke.
These devices contain a heat-sensitive element that triggers an alarm when temperatures exceed a predefined threshold. They are useful for detecting fires in areas where smoke may not be readily apparent, such as server rooms with high airflow.
Becoming increasingly more popular choice for fire detection, multi-sensors offer data centres enhanced fire detection capabilities, based on smoke and heat detection within one device.
These detectors combine two or more sensing technologies, such as smoke detection (photoelectric) and heat detection, within a single unit. This allows them to respond to a wider range of fire types compared to single-sensor detectors.
Data centres are susceptible to false alarms triggered by dust, condensation, or even cleaning activities. Multi-sensor detectors can be programmed to require confirmation from multiple sensors before triggering an alarm, minimising false alarms while maintaining sensitivity to real fires.
Some multi-sensor detectors can be configured with adjustable sensitivity levels for each sensing element. This allows data centre operators to tailor the detection system to the specific environment, minimising false alarms while ensuring fires are detected promptly.
However, it's important to note that multi-sensor detectors may not be the only solution used in data centres.
Multi-sensor detectors are often used alongside other fire detection technologies like aspirating smoke detection systems, which excel at early detection of smouldering fires.
Multi-sensor detectors can be more expensive than single-sensor detectors. The cost-benefit analysis for a particular data centre will depend on factors like the size, fire risk profile, and existing fire safety measures.
Overall, multi-sensor detectors offer a valuable tool for comprehensive fire detection in data centres. Their ability to combine multiple sensing technologies and reduce false alarms makes them a compelling option for these critical facilities.
Modern data centres are increasingly reliant on Building Management Systems (BMS) to monitor and control various aspects of the facility, including fire safety systems. BMS can integrate with fire detection systems, triggering alarms, shutting down equipment, and isolating affected areas upon fire detection. Additionally, BMS can interface with emergency response systems, automatically notifying fire services and providing them with real-time data about the location and severity of the fire.
According to a report by Grand View Research, the global data centre market size is expected to reach USD 527.2 billion by 2030, reflecting a CAGR of 13.2% from 2023. This growth is fuelled by the proliferation of internet-connected devices, the rise of cloud computing, and advancements in technologies like artificial intelligence and big data analytics. This ever-increasing data deluge necessitates additional storage and processing capacity, making data centres even more crucial.
Protecting data centres from fires is not just about safeguarding equipment; it's about safeguarding the very foundation of the UK's economy and our day to day lives – there is no going back. Data centres sit at the very heart of this network we now find ourselves intrinsically a part of.
By prioritising fire safety, we can ensure the continued smooth operation of critical services, secure valuable data, and foster continued innovation in a digital world. But we can only do this by embracing innovative fire safety technologies and fostering collaboration between data centre operators, fire safety specialists, and building management system providers.
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