Vast changes again this time, as the electrical works push on at pace both inside and outside of the new facility.
While visually the site now appears a little less finished than before, with masses of flooring taken up to accommodate the newly installed containment and cabling, from a more wholistic view point, things are pushing forwards in a big way at the moment.
Weekly overview
The pace of work and progress on-site has certainly been turned up a gear, as multiple trades now work together on various aspects of the facility’s power systems, alongside work on other related areas to maintain solid progression throughout.
We have a lot of photos to present this time around, so rather than spending too much time on the introduction, we’ll let them do the talking.
Our LV boards have arrived with us, split across two deliveries due to their sizeThis first batch of boards shown here are destined for LV Room AWe were able to swing the boards right into the loading bay, ready for pre-staging ahead of them being rolled into their final position on their respective plinthsThe first couple of sections of the board now coupled together in LV Room AHere we can see into the gland plate enclosures, where the large armoured cables will soon enter the boards to feed the various breakers seen in the chambers aboveHere is another view of LV Room A, with the UPS Boards now also in their final places opposite the main boardThe size of these boards makes taking a photo of them tricky – getting them all in view is nearly impossible – a wide angle lens in on our shopping list!A view from the door of LV Room A, looking towards the boards now full situated, coupled, levelled and locked offThis is the view down one of the risers, as the containment between floors begins to take shape, and specialist containment for fire cable routes is run inA look at some of the containment in place to hold the ladder work under the floorHere we see the floor starting to go back down in Data Hall 1, now that the whips are in place – more on that further down in this postAnother view of the floor back in place at the rear of Row A in Pod 1, with only the termination at the PDU end to goLots of inter-room pathways have been made for cable routes in the past few weeksThe largest cables will be cleated to the ground, with slotted channel now fixed to the ground along these routes to accommodate thisHere we see the slotted channel in place under the floor in the LV RoomsThe main containment runs out to the generators are also starting to take shapeFurther progress has also been made outside the building, with the trenches dug for the ducting that will carry our HV feeds into our demiseThe main run of trench to take the ductwork out to the roadsideHere’s a look at the poured transformer base, with the shutter forming fully removedA look at some of the machinery on-site to undertake the ground workThe trench continues to the road, with steel plates in place to bridge the gap for access while the top remains openHere we see some of the smaller drums of earth cabling for this phase of the project arriving to siteHere’s one of the larger drums of earth cable, clocking in at around 750kgSome more of the earth cabling in storage, along with a large quantity of the ladder to be installed around the facilityA sizable delivery of the larger armoured cabling that will run between the LV rooms, and to the Data HallsSome of these drums are around 2 metres in diameter, with the delivery clocking in at circa eight tonnesSome more of the drums inside, awaiting their time to land on the large 10 tonne axels we have for pulling them in – each single length of cable can weigh as much as 300kg, and needs to be pulled in using special rollersA view of the cabling as it is laid under the floor, between the LV RoomsMuch of the floor has come up to allow for the cabling to be routed, along with the temporary removal of the UPS boardsThe cabling has been partly stripped here, and installed into the gland plate ready for eventual terminationThis view shows the cables starting to be cleated together, which run the width of the building between the two LV Rooms – there are 15 more cables to join this first threeThe first set of cables reaching LV Room B, which will interlink the two boardsThis view further shows some of the underfloor containment, which is multi-layered in the LV Rooms (top layer removed here)This is a view of the now completed cabinet-side whip cabling in Data Hall 1, which will feed each of the racks with diverse powerThis room alone has eaten up over 2km of cabling, with well over 3,000 ties holding it all down to the trayData Hall 1 has been flood cabled with feeds for all eventual rack locations, including the currently vacant spots for Pod 2Diverse cable routes always take pathways which reduce cross-over, in this instance only happening once, where A and B feeds need to move past each other as each pod is cross-fed – a cable bridge has been installed to handle thisAs always, the devil is in the detail, and we’re very pleased with how the underfloor cabling has come together in Data Hall 1A view down the length of Row B, with all commando sockets in place, and earth bonding for both the racks and the raised floor visibleThe A and B feeds to each rack only converge at the rack itself, otherwise maintaining fully separated routes throughoutKeeping routes so strictly diverse in this way requires far more cabling and containment, which comes with a great deal of additional cost and labour, however it is vital for true client-facing A/B redundancy
As you can see, it’s been a busy few weeks on-site here at NLE.
Things are certainly ramping up as we move into the closing stages of the opening phase of the project, which will allow our first clients to install kit into Data Hall 1.
It’s certainly a rather intense time to be a part of the NLE project, as multiple trades push on with various aspects of the build in tandem, ultimately taking us towards the finish line at pace, and in line with expectations on our phase one launch.
What’s next?
For the time being, much of the same. Progress will continue on electrical over the coming weeks, and we will also be pushing ahead with other areas, including the various cooling systems throughout the facility.
