Red Bee switches to green energy supplier for Hilversum data centre

Red Bee is looking to make its Hilversum data centre, the Media Gateway, more environmentally sustainable by powering it with electricity from a green energy supplier.

The Media Gateway (pictured) is a 1400 square metre carrier-neutral data centre, located in the Media Park Hilversum, near Amsterdam, that services a large number of public and commercial broadcasters as well as other media and telecom companies.

The supplier of the green energy is the Dutch company Eneco, which is owned by the Mitsubishi Corporation.

“We are constantly looking to achieve increased sustainability in our business and operations,” said Josbert van Rooijen, the head of Benelux, Central and Eastern Europe at Red Bee.

“Data centres generally consume a lot of power and investing in green energy is a logical next step for us in increasing the sustainability of our Media Gateway and data centre operations.”

The Media Gateway in Hilversum is a colocation and connectivity data centre that also offers access to all Red Bee hubs and services around the world including Playout, MCR and Distribution as well as all main data centres across Europe. It also has direct connection to major carriers, telcos, ISPs and an ever-growing number of football stadiums, television studios and event locations.

Other sustainable initiatives at the Media Gateway include a “free air” system that uses outdoor air to cool the data centre and cold aisle containment that is used to improve the airflow efficiency. Both of these steps have substantially decreased the energy consumed by the centre, the company said.

Red Bee is certified according to ISO 14001:2015 for Environmental Management Systems and was recently awarded the DPP’s Committed to Sustainability mark.

In the Netherlands, Red Bee is also participating in the MediaGroen consortium.

This consists of companies in and around the Hilversum Media Park who are working towards making the broadcasting and media industry environmentally, economically and socially more sustainable in a 5-year project.