Be part of the solution
Portrait
Social Media
Share this article
“We started out in Stavanger almost ten years ago now, and have been operational for more than five years,” says Svein Atle Hagaseth, Chief Sales Officer at Green Mountain AS. “Our facility in Rennesoy, called DC1-Stavanger, was originally an old NATO ammunitions storage facility which became available,” he explains. “As Norway is all about sustainability – 99% of our energy comes from renewable sources – the municipality came up with the idea to reuse the place, located inside a mountain, and turn it into a data center.”
Having been a naval base and therefore close to the sea, the idea evolved to use the proximity to the water to create a natural cooling system for the data center. “The cooling facility uses an old and simple technique, working with the tools of nature,” says Mr. Hagaseth. “We use gravity to transport the water into a basin in the cooling station and, through a heat exchanger, the cold water flows into the data center through a network of pipes.”
In this way, Green Mountain achieves extremely efficient cooling levels. We only use about 3 KW of power to receive the equivalent effect of 1,000 KW of cooling. This makes the facility operate approximately 2,000 times more efficiently than air-cooling.
“Others use a similar technique,” admits the Chief Sales Officer. “But we have the benefit of the deep fjord, which provides stable cold water all year round. In 2014, Green Mountain added a second facility, DC2-Telemark in Rjukan, to its portfolio. “This second data center is a regular outside data center, not inside a mountain,” explains Mr. Hagaseth. “But it has also been built in the spirit of sustainability, as there are several power plants – natural dams which generate power from water – in close vicinity to the center.”
Beside the two data centers in Norway, Green Mountain has international offices in the UK, Spain, and Toronto, Canada.
“About 50% of our current business volume come from Cloud and service providers,” the Chief Sales Officer reveals. “Another 25% are bank and finance, about 15% is high performance computing (HPC) and research such as universities, and the remaining 10% is made up from the public sector.”
We have proved that sustainability and cost efficiency can go hand in hand. In Norway and with Green Mountain, there is no trade-off; you can get both. Svein Atle HagasethChief Sales Officer
2018 has been a great year for the company, which expects around 60 to 70% annual growth. “Actually, it has been a fantastic year,” says Mr. Hagaseth. “We have been able to gain 20 new customers, making us likely the most international data center provider in Norway, as 80% of our new client base is from abroad.”
In addition to its strong Norwegian footprint, Green Mountain has, since its inception, focused internationally. Main markets are Germany, the US and the UK. For international clients there are several good reasons to rely on the ISO and Uptimecertified company. “In addition to our green approach, customers benefit from our GreenPeak solution providing our clients 100% transparency, and the world’s leading cost of power,” concludes Mr. Hagaseth.
