
The inside of the prototype timber module
Company looks to offer timber prefab modules
A German data center firm has announced the release of a new
prefabricated timber data center module.
Prior1 this week announced the launch of IT Container Eco Fix.
The 6.5 × 3.0 × 3.4 m module comes with enough room to host five
racks, a 14kW propane-based indirect free cooling system, and a
15kVA UPS module.
Cross-laminated timber, or CLT, is a fire-resistant
prefabricated wood material commonly used as a building material
around the world, but has not traditionally been widely used in
the data center sector.
The core of the module is spruce-based X-LAM cross-laminated
timber from timber engineering firm DERIX Group. The Eco Fix was
developed in close collaboration with DERIX, which provided
expertise for wood processing alongside assurance of sustainable
origin and dismantling concepts.
The module reportedly meets all the requirements of the EN 50600
European standard for data center infrastructure – including F90
fire protection, RC2 burglar protection, and efficiency
standards.
All components are pre-installed and tested, with the power and
networking work required after arrival. The containerized data
center is delivered fully equipped, including air conditioning,
power supply, security, and monitoring technology. A 5kW solar
sunshade roof is an available extra.
At the end of its life, Prior1 said the container can be
completely dismantled and the components returned.
The container is available either as a traditional on-premise
customer solution or as an on-site colocation operator model
where the infrastructure remains with the customer but is fully
operated by Prior1.
A prototype container has been developed as shown at an event in
Osnabrück.
Founded in 2008 and based in Sankt Augustin, Prior1 specializes
in the planning and construction of server rooms and data
centers. As well as the new wooden product, it offers several
traditional metal pre-fab and containerized data center modules.
Wood has been cited as a potential structural material for data
centers for some time. EcoDataCenter and Boden Type use CLT for
their data centers in Sweden, as do some Icelandic data centers.
Microsoft recently announced that it is constructing two data
centers in Northern Virginia, partially using cross-laminated
timber.
Vertiv also offers its own prefabricated wooden data center
module. The TimberMod variant of its SmartMod container series
uses mass timber instead of steel for structural elements,
including the casing.
Some critics have suggested that wood is unsuitable because it
is flammable, citing the role of wooden floors and ceilings in
the disastrous fire that destroyed OVHcloud's SBG2 data center
in 2001. However, proponents point out that glulam structural
components survive fires better than many other materials.
Source: datacenterdynamics.com