The feeling in the room was that, due to the regulations, Europe is pricing itself out of the general market – although due to data sovereignty a market will be retained.. Generally, green energy is more expensive, which also distorts the market.
Suppliers should invest in automated, digital payment and contracting systems and processes.Digitisation will improve transparency, information exchange, payment performance and contract management across the supply chain.
Standard components and digital tools - the construction Platforms ‘ecosystem’.The underpinnings of a potential marketplace are set out in the Playbook, which states that Government:.will look to procure construction projects based on product platforms comprising of standardised and interoperable components and assemblies, the requirements for which will be part of a digital component catalogue..
Contracting authorities should collaborate to find […] ways in which cross-sector platform solutions can be applied […] that enable interoperability of components across different sectors.. Future procurements and frameworks should support this with the development of a market and supply chain that can develop and deliver designs based on these platform approaches, manufacture and supply components, and innovate to improve and develop.these over time.
Construction Platforms will be familiar to anyone who has been following Bryden Wood’s work over the last few years.
What is interesting here, though, is the strong link being made between standard components and digital libraries, and the need to create a market which supports the approach.. As we’ll see in the following examples, the combination of standard components and digital tools is exactly what we need to facilitate a digital marketplace.And given the nature of data centres, they lend themselves particularly well to this approach, where standardisation of the end-user product is paramount.. DfMA brings precisely the reliability, predictability and speed to market that our data centre clients want and benefit from..
Creating sustainable data centres.The biggest environmental impact of data centres is in their use of power and water for cooling, but they are also heavy in terms of embedded carbon.
Carbon is embedded in the structure of buildings as everyone knows, but in data centres significantly more so in the M&E equipment within them.As we optimise the geometry and layout of the structure, plant and systems we can have a positive effect on the amount of embodied carbon in the building, structure and systems.. Our more sustainable approach to close coupling and integration increases efficiency in cooling and distribution losses and also lessens the carbon intensive materials used in these systems.. Our industrialisation and digital design approach allows us to quantify this carbon content during design, and minimise the content through optimisation and materials selection.