Site Calculator — ML Harris

ML Harris

Data Centre Advisory

Site Calculator

Turn Land Into Live Capacity.

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Planning consent and environmental clearance assumed. Calculates buildable IT capacity from land area and grid connection. Minimum viable site: 10 MW IT load — sites below this threshold are flagged as sub-commercial.

01 — Site Geometry

Total Site Area iTotal land parcel. Planning consent and environmental clearance are assumed. Switch units for UK (acres), EU (hectares), or raw m².

Approved Land Coverage (%) iPlanning-consented percentage of the site that can carry built structures. Typical data centre range: 25–45% including M&E plant yards.

Max Permitted Building Height iPlanning-consented maximum structural height. Taller shells unlock additional storeys, which multiply gross floor area and drive up supporting-infrastructure requirements (plant yard, cooling, substation). Typical data hall floor-to-floor: 7m. Ground floor with plant: 8m.

Data Hall Efficiency (%) iPercentage of gross floor area that becomes usable server floor. Plant rooms, corridors, loading bays, and offices account for the rest. Industry norm: 55–65%.

02 — Grid Connection

Grid Connection (MVA) iApparent power from the grid operator. A 10% power factor deduction is applied. 100 MVA yields approximately 90 MW of usable real power.

Independent Grid Feeds iTier III and IV require two independent feeds from separate substations. A single feed places full backup dependency on on-site generation.

Generator Unit Size (MW) iSize of each standby generator unit. Modern data-centre standard is 2.5 MW (CAT 3516E / MTU 20V class). Larger units reduce count but need more yard space. The tool auto-computes the number of units required for the selected Tier's redundancy scheme (N, N+1, or 2N).

03 — Build Specification

Target PUE iPower Usage Effectiveness = total facility draw ÷ IT load. Google fleet: 1.09. Modern design target: 1.30. Industry average: 1.56. EU Energy Efficiency Directive 2023 caps new-build DCs above 500 kW at PUE ≤ 1.5 by 2030. Germany's Energiedienstleistungsgesetz requires PUE ≤ 1.3 for new sites from 2026.

Cooling Method iAir cooling suits ≤20kW/rack. Hybrid combines free-cooling and mechanical. Liquid cooling is required for AI and HPC workloads above 20kW/rack.

Uptime Tier / EN 50600 Class iUptime Institute Tier and the CENELEC EN 50600-2-1 Availability Class are harmonised. Tier II ≈ Class 2 (N, redundant components). Tier III ≈ Class 3 (N+1, concurrent maintainability). Tier IV ≈ Class 4 (2N, fully fault-tolerant). EN 50600 is the European benchmark; most EU clients require Class 3 minimum for commercial facilities.

Target Rack Density (kW / rack) iStandard enterprise IT: 8kW. AI inference: 30–60kW. Training clusters: 100kW+. Above 20kW triggers liquid cooling requirement.

Rack Pitch (m² / rack) iFloor area per rack including hot/cold aisles and service clearance. 2.0 m² is dense hyperscale with cold-aisle containment. 2.5 m² is the Uptime Institute industry reference. 3.0 m² applies to wider-aisle enterprise or Tier IV with service corridors. 4.0 m² covers legacy and co-lo deployments.

A — Overall Viability

B — Power Chain

C — Space and Racks

D — On-Site Generation

E — Land Use Breakdown

Building footprint (consented)

M&E plant yard (estimated)

Cooling plant area (estimated)

Access roads and parking

Open land, buffers, green space

Supporting infrastructure sized from facility draw — plant yard 500 m²/MW, cooling 100/175/275 m²/MW (Air/Hybrid/Liquid), substation 80 m²/MW, roads 300 m²/MW + 2,000 m² base. Industry benchmark: 30–40% of a campus is actively developed. If the support bars exceed the consented footprint, the tool flags the site as not feasible.

F — Land Intensity & Sizing

Reverse sizing — what land do I need?

Target IT Load

MW IT

Minimum developable land to deliver the target IT load at current coverage, efficiency, density and pitch. Does not account for planning buffers beyond those already captured in "Approved Land Coverage".

G — Not Modelled

—Grid connection cost and lead time (18–24 months for large power transformers)

—Fibre carrier diversity and proximity to nearest IXP (AMS-IX, DE-CIX, LINX, INEX)

—Water availability and Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE) — up to 19M L/day for large evaporative systems

—Planning fees, S106 / PLU / BauNVO / Bestemmingsplan obligations and infrastructure contributions

—Construction cost per MW (UK / EU typically £8–14M or €10–16M/MW fully fitted)

—EU Energy Efficiency Directive reporting (Art. 12), CSRD sustainability disclosure, and EU Taxonomy alignment

—F-Gas Regulation (EU 517/2014) restrictions on refrigerants — affects chiller selection

—Renewable Energy Directive III (RED III) and EU ETS carbon pricing exposure

—Full EN 50600 series compliance audit — availability, security, energy efficiency

Indicative outputs only — verify with qualified engineers before committing capital. Use is governed by the Terms of Use and Cookies Statement.