Prime Data Centers wanted a site very close to the massive data creation of source and “data gravity” of the San Francisco Bay Area, but without the significant seismic/flood risk and expense profile. They chose Sacramento for safety & stability, cost effectiveness and sustainable power.
PROJECT FEATURES
Prime Data Centers hired ACCO to build out Data Halls 2 and 3 in their existing Sacramento facility. To meet the tight deadlines of the project, ACCO utilized resources from both Northern and Southern Region and long hours in the field to successfully meet the customer’s needs.
PROJECT SUMMARY
The ambitious timeline was not the only challenge ACCO had to navigate. Delays caused by permit and coordination issues impacted ACCO and the rest of the project team. The delays created a domino effect that upended detailed coordination efforts intended to support the project’s accelerated schedule goals. The ACCO team responded by doing what we do best – communicate, collaborate and execute to exceed the customer’s expectations.
To expedite the project, ACCO’s Sacramento team used detailing support from Southern California and our fabrication shops in both Northern and Southern California. The owner provided six 450-ton air cooled oil-free chillers, 18 custom computer room air handlers, and 12 LG variable refrigerant flow condensing units paired to six computer room air condition units. As is the case with most data centers, we had to accommodate N+1 redundancy (a form of resilience that ensures system availability in the event of component failure) requirements for the mechanical system to ensure back-up cooling capacity in the event of equipment failure.
During the project, ACCO identified that ease of installation was not considered during the design of existing pipe supports and routing. To solve that issue, the piping team modified the routing and supports to allow for more pre-fabrication in the shop and, as a result, a quicker field installation.
To further expedite the project, ACCO asked to prefabricate two large exterior pump skids. Each skid included three 40 HP pumps, an air separator, an expansion tank, variable frequency drives and glycol feed pumps.
In the end, through collaboration and innovative problem solving, ACCO was able to install nearly 8 megawatts of cooling equipment in 3.5 months – a project that would normally take 6-8 months.