Global DC Oy (former Yandex data center in Finland)

2024: Russian Yandex ceased to be the owner of a data center in Finland

On February 5, 2024, Yandex announced the division of the company. Netherlands Yandex N.V. entered into a deal to sell Yandex's business for 475 billion rubles to a consortium of private investors. As part of the reorganization, Yandex will retain the businesses, services and assets of the Yandex N.V. group, with the exception of foreign startups and a data center in Finland.

2022

Data Center Operator Name Change

In May 2022, Yandex announced a change in the name of its subsidiary in Finland. The new name is Global DC Oy. Read more here.

Disconnection from power supply, switching to diesel generator

At the end of April 2022, the Yandex data center in Finland was disconnected from the power supply. It switched to a diesel generator.

We are talking about an object located in the Finnish city of Mäntsylä (near Helsinki). The fact that the data center was disconnected from the main power source was told to RBC by a representative of Yandex. The use of diesel generators is a temporary measure, he said. He added that the data center continues to operate and the company is in the process of renegotiating its contract with the energy supplier.

The Yandex data center in Finland is disconnected from the power supply. It switched to a diesel generator

The supplier of electricity for Yandex in Finland is Nivos Energia Oy. Its president, Marco Al , said in March that Nivos Energia Oy would suspend cooperation with Yandex's Finnish subsidiary Yandex Oy if it fell under EU sanctions imposed in response to a Russian special operation in Ukraine. Al noted then that Nivos Energia Oy is closely monitoring the sanctions regime and will comply with all European laws and requirements.

In mid-April 2022, Mäntsälän Uutiset wrote that Nivos Energia was acquiring a new bio-heat center from the local HansHeat, which uses wood chips, wood pellets or grain as fuel. The new plant should be commissioned by the end of 2022, it is assumed that it will allow producing a third of the energy for district heating in Mäntsylä and replacing the heat generated by the Yandex data center.

The capacities of the Finnish data center Yandex are used to work with foreign companies. For example, it stores user data from the Dutch taxi aggregator company Yandex.Taxi B.V. The data center in Mäntsylä is connected to two independent energy sources of 110 kilovolts each, there are dynamic UPS and diesel generators. Some of the heat generated by the data center is used to heat water in about a thousand county homes in Finland. Yandex is the largest taxpayer in the municipality of Mäntsylä.^[1]

2021: A full-fledged transition to renewable energy

On June 30, 2021, Yandex announced that its data center in Finland was completely switching to renewable energy. To do this, the Russian company entered into a 5-year agreement with the Finnish Ilmatar Energy, which operates a network of wind farms.

The transition to fully renewable energy sources at the Yandex data center in the city of Mäntsylä is scheduled for early 2022. In 2020, the power consumption of the facility was 68 GWh. After the transition, 20% of the energy consumed by all Yandex data centers will come from renewable sources.

Yandex data center in Finland completely switches to renewable energy

Yandex notes that the company's costs of energy produced by wind generators will be comparable to those spent on energy from traditional sources. At the same time, Yandex reimburses part of the costs by supplying excess heat from the servers to Mäntsylä - it is used to heat houses in the cold season.

It is assumed that the use of energy from renewable sources will reduce the carbon footprint that Yandex's infrastructure leaves. Reducing the carbon footprint is one of the goals that the company has formulated for itself on the sustainability agenda. Yandex is also exploring the possibility of using alternative energy sources in its other data centers.

The data center in Mäntsylä is one of Yandex's five data centers. By the end of June 2021, it has been operating for about 7 years and is used to work with foreign markets. Natural cooling technology is used at this facility: servers are cooled by air from the street all year round. The energy efficiency indicator (PUE) of the Finnish data center is 1.1, while the global average is 1.59. The closer to one the PUE value, the higher the energy efficiency of the data center, explained in Yandex.

2015

Yandex data center can heat up to five thousand Finnish houses in Mäntsylä

The heat generated by the servers of the Yandex data center in the Finnish settlement of Mäntsylä will soon be used by the local energy company Mäntsälän Sähkö to heat the nearest buildings of the Finnish settlement, according to the Tekniikka & Talous portal (translated from the website of the Finnish-Russian^[2] of Commerce^[3].

According to the portal, the thermal energy of the working servers is enough to heat five thousand local houses connected to the communal heating system. Calefa from Hollola is responsible for the heat recovery technology. Calefa's technology solution, which allows you to utilize the side thermal energy of a machine room, is unique in its kind and so far the only one in the world.

In a Yandex teleconference based on 2013 results, Alexander Shulgin said that DC will be commissioned in the third quarter of 2014. However, the launch of the DC was never announced, and already in a teleconference based on the results of the third quarter of 2014, Greg Abowski spoke about the impact on CapEx of the company's denominated in currency equipment costs for the Finnish DC (And then turning to the cash flow statement, obviously, all of our purchases of servers and the construction of data center in Finland are essentially U.S. dollar or euro denominated). So, it seems, the deadlines have shifted.

First stage of DPC construction completed

On March 6, 2015, it became known about the completion of the first stage of construction of the Yandex data center in the Finnish settlement of Mäntsylä^[4].

The media learned that Yandex bought land in Finland for the construction of a data center in March 2013. Alexander Shulgin said then: DC will begin work in the third or fourth quarter of 2014.

Sketch of the future Yandex data center in Mäntsylä, 2015

Sketch of the future Yandex data center in Mäntsylä, 2015

Sketch of the building of the future Yandex data center in Mäntsylä, 2015

Yandex construction site in Mäntsylä, 2015

Yandex construction site in Mäntsylä, 2015

As of March 6, 2015, the company completed the first stage of the construction of the data center, its capacity is 10 MW. All engineering systems are connected to the building, permission has been received from the authorities to operate the structure. However, construction continues:

• auxiliary structures are being erected,
• office building,
• security room,
• the area is ennobled,
• roads are being built.

It will be possible to talk about the implementation of the project after the launch of all four phases DC of the project and reaching the design capacity of 40 MW.

2013: Plans to build a data center in southern Finland

Yandex is going to build a large data center in southern Finland. For this purpose, she bought a plot of land with an area of ​ ​ 8 hectares and a cost of €1.5 million in the small city of Mäntsylä, which is 60 km from the capital of Helsinki.^[5]

The main clients of the new data center will be users from Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Turkey. The start of construction work is scheduled for August 2013. Obviously, the place for the new technological site by the Russian company was chosen for a number of reasons. The main ones are the relatively low cost of land, the cold climate and proximity to Russia. Now Yandex operates data centers in Russia, the Netherlands and the United States.

Yandex's move towards cold Scandinavia is more than justified. Many foreign and domestic companies have previously chosen countries in this part of Europe to host their data centers in them.

Notes