Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) has partnered with data centre software specialist EkkoSense to optimise cooling across 20 of its UK data centres, resulting in an average 15% reduction in cooling energy usage. This initiative has significantly cut the company’s carbon footprint by approximately 760 tonnes annually and reduced energy bills by over £1 million each year.

These savings were achieved by leveraging EkkoSense’s monitoring and analytics solutions, including IoT sensors, AI analytics, and digital twin technology, to better understand and manage the data centres’ energy consumption. EkkoSense’s insights have enabled VMO2 to optimise real-time energy usage, enhancing efficiency. The data centre industry’s rapid growth, driven by the AI boom, poses significant challenges in supplying renewable energy. Some data centre projects have been rejected due to concerns about local energy grids’ capacity to meet the increased demand.

Dean Boyle, EkkoSense’s CEO states that “With our software collecting thousands of data points every five minutes – adding to the millions of data points already collected, we’re able to continually refine the effectiveness of our machine learning algorithms for Virgin Media O2” and that “having access to this level of real-time insight means that Virgin Media O2’s operations team are able to track how their data centres are performing from a cooling, power and capacity perspective. They are also able to identify further energy optimisation opportunities in terms of cooling energy usage and overall savings”.

Likewise, Adrian Lazenby, Head of Technical Site Engineering and Delivery at VMO2 mentioned that “In partnership with EkkoSense, we’ve optimised our data centres so they operate efficiently, using real-time data so we can make airflow and cooling improvements, resulting in significant cooling energy savings.”