Rackspace Hosting, have begun installing equipment in their new Slough data centre, which they claim will be powered by renewable energy sources.

The data center is located in Slough close to a Scottish and Southern Energy combined heat and power (CHP) plant with potential generating capacity of 101MW.  The CHP plant is the UK’s largest dedicated biomass energy facility and its main sources of fuel are wood chips, biomass and waste paper.  The site has its own fibre fuel processing plant, which takes delivery of waste paper products and converts these into useable fuel.

Part of the plant is contracted under the Non Fossil Fuel Obligation and part of it produces over 200GWH of output qualifying for Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs), which is equivalent to around 90MW of wind generation. Scottish and Southern Energy completed the acquisition of Slough Heat and Power Ltd from SEGRO plc for a total cash consideration of £49.25m earlier this year.

The plant is connected to the National Grid so Rackspace’s claim is probably more marketing spin than reality. Are Rackspace buying the ROCs (and increasing the already expensive cost of data center power) or just claiming that they use the power as they are a local consumer?

Anyone from Rackspace care to comment?