Largest Nordic data centre to provide flexibility to the grid

The Helsinki Data Centre is to be connected to Norway’s grid to provide balancing services to the electricity market.

The agreement between Fortum and the Helsinki Data Centre’s owner, ICT solution provider Telia, will utilise ABB’s Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) systems to provide the flexibility.

It follows a trial with deployment and testing of the system during the summer of 2021. Since then, the data centre has contributed several megawatts of capacity to Fingrid’s fast frequency reserve (FFR) market as part of the Fortum Spring’s virtual battery.

The Fortum Spring virtual battery is a growing platform comprised of the flexibility assets of thousands of customers, business and residential, across the Nordic countries.

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“The solution utilises the customer’s existing assets to support the power grid without jeopardising the main purpose of the equipment – securing the supply of power for critical processes,” explains Ilari Alaperä, Business Development Manager at Fortum.

“This enables a return on investments that traditionally haven’t generated a positive cash flow. At the same time, we are driving the development of the Nordic electricity system towards a cleaner future.”

In a normal situation, the power from the batteries of the Helsinki Data Centre’s UPS equipment is used in the balancing of the power grid. If a power outage or other exceptional situation occurs, the batteries will still be used to cover the data centre’s electricity demand before the back-up power generators start operating.

Data centre and crypto mining operations are burgeoning in the Nordic countries and the former at least are expected to increase significantly in the upcoming years. As energy-intensive operations, their connections to the grid require optimising, while owners also wish to optimise their energy use and costs.

UPS systems and their batteries offer quick regulating power and are considered an ideal fit for the power reserve maintained by Fingrid.

Power can be drawn from the batteries in milliseconds without any delays. If a major disruption occurs in the balancing of the grid, the UPS equipment will respond within a few hundred milliseconds and help in recovery from the disruption.

Harri Vilonen, Telia Development Manager, says that utilising UPS equipment in the electricity market is an important part of a modern data centre and the mitigation of environmental impacts.

“By participating in the reserve market, we can promote more renewable energy by providing support to the power grid.”

Telia considers its Helsinki Data Centre, the largest in the Nordics, also among the most energy-efficient and environmentally friendly and powered from renewables, claim it to be carbon neutral.