FedEx Opens Colorado Springs Data Center

fedex-colo

The exterior of the new FedEx data center in Colorado Springs, Colo.

FedEx (FDX) announced the grand opening of its first environmentally sustainable data center, located in in the Northgate business park in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Phase 1 of the Enterprise Data Center-West (EDC-W) began in 2006 for the 140,000 square foot facility and was completed in 2008. Phase 2 expanded an additional 26,000 square feet in 2009.

Green Data Center

FedEx has applied for certification under the LEED ( Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program for energy efficient buildings,as the company has implemented a range of redundant mechanical and electrical systems that yield a high level of efficiency while reducing costs.  The Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) for EDC-W is 1.28. FedEx anticipates that the data center will benefit from more than 5,000 hours of “free cooling” during a normal year. During the construction phase, crews diverted over 75 percent of the construction waste from a landfill and 11 percent of the building products were extracted and regionally produced.

The Facility

The Colorado Springs data center will become the corporate technology center, replacing an existing facility in Memphis.  "This will become our primary data center and will represent 40 percent of our overall computing capacity," FedEx CIO Rob Carter said. "We have made a significant investment this facility. It will be one of our largest data centers for years to come."

The Colorado Springs Gazette reports that EDC-W is served power from different substations and will use about 8 megawatts of power.  About 30 of the 550 employees at the FedEx campus in Northgate will work in the data center.