Winter is Coming: Looking to Mitigate Rising Energy Costs, U.K. Businesses Peek Into Their Server Rooms

Due to the conflict in Ukraine and disruptions in the flow of natural gas across Europe, energy prices are increasing in the UK. While the government is taking steps to cap the coming pain, there will be an increase.

For many businesses that maintain their own on-premise IT infrastructure, 2022 presented never-seen-before challenges that are a harbinger for 2023 as well:

• Electricity bills rising 4-5 fold over the last three years with uncertain times ahead due to the reworking of Ofgem price caps and a revisiting of fixed-price energy deals.
• Recent reports find that 60% of U.K. Data Centre professionals have said their electricity bills had increased by up to 40% over the past three years, with 3% reporting a price increase in excess of 50%. 
• This past summer, temperatures broke 40 degrees Celsius for the first time ever in the UK during the sustained heatwave.

While third-party data centres are not immune to rising costs, they often provide greater energy efficiency, superior backup systems, and around-the-clock support, making them a smart choice for businesses that want to manage costs and preserve their business application performance. One area for organisations to consider is making the move to a colocation model that makes businesses more cost-efficient simply by pooling resources. For example, cooling can be 70-80% more efficient on average.

Looking for Business Assurance in Uncertain Times

The energy crisis will affect businesses that manage their own infrastructure in ways big and small. There are top-level business benefits to making the move from managing your own on-premise IT infrastructure and into a colocation environment such as lower total cost of ownership, uptime SLAs, bandwidth, and greener operations. However, companies need more than just a warehouse. For example, Thrive owns its own state-of-the-art facility in Luton which features an in-house Technical Assistance Centre that supports customers with engineering and strategic design services onsite to help companies execute their digital transformation roadmap.

The onsite Thrive team in Luton has decades of experience helping businesses navigate their technology needs and is on hand helping clients run their own data centre within the Luton Tier 3 facility. The team can speak of their first-hand experience with how costs have changed and what can be done to help mitigate them. Recently, Thrive’s U.K. data centre clients have reported an average 20% efficiency gain just from pooling resources.  

If you are considering taking a key next step in your IT journey or face an acute talent shortage to keep things running smoothly, the forthcoming winter season and cost of energy could be the right time to make a move out of your server room. Learn more about Thrive’s data centre and schedule your tour today.