As the UK grapples with energy volatility and the imperative to decarbonise, one company is stepping forward with a bold new identity, poised to revolutionise how large-scale power consumers, particularly data centres, access green energy. We sat down with Amy Young, Director of Data Centres at the newly rebranded Xela Energy, to find out more.
Could you share a bit of your own journey into the data centre sector?
Sure! I don’t think anyone you speak to in the data centre world has a conventional journey into it. Everyone seems to have their own unique path. For me personally, I began my career in recruitment, and that’s where I spent over a decade. It was pharmaceutical recruitment, so a very different field! In all honesty, I simply fell out of love with recruitment. If you don’t love that job, it’s an incredibly challenging role to be in.
Then, an opportunity arose with a managed service provider called CHS Networks. My role was to establish their sales and marketing arm from scratch. I was with them for five years, and during that time, we grew from no sales and marketing activity to a fully-fledged team. It was the steepest learning curve I’d ever experienced in technology. We worked with clients on everything from hardware right through to full turnkey solutions.
Through that work, we actually started to sell colocation to our clients. When they were looking to move their infrastructure, perhaps a cloud environment didn’t quite suit their business needs, but they also no longer wanted their server infrastructure on-premise. So, we began working with a particular colocation provider, which was Custodian. After about 18 months of reselling their products to our clients, the CEO approached me. He said he’d love for me to do what I was doing at CHS, but for Custodian.
Again, it was another huge, steep learning curve, transitioning from the managed service provider side directly into the data centre world. But yes, that’s essentially my journey: recruitment, then managed service provider, and now the data centre sector
That’s quite a shift from recruitment, which is inherently very people-centric, to suddenly dealing with complex technology. Was it an easy transition for you?
There are definite pros and cons to both. In recruitment, the ‘product’ you’re selling is a human and they can, of course, change their mind if they decide they don’t want to go in that direction. With the technical side of things, I just absolutely loved it. I adored the innovation, the incredibly fast pace of it all and the sheer abundance of information and learning available for you to absorb.
It was, and still is, a very steep learning curve on a daily basis. This industry simply doesn’t stand still, and that’s precisely what I love about it. For me, there were points where it felt unnerving and a little bit scary, because there’s an expectation that people expect you to be technical. You have to be able to deliver on that, and they’re relying on you to effectively be the expert. But I’ve been very fortunate; I’ve worked with some amazing companies who have incredible training and development pathways, and I’ve ensured I’m well-versed in everything I need to be.
Are you encountering many more female engineers and tech personnel than you initially expected?
There are definitely more and more of us, which is an amazing thing to see. Every time I attend an event, it’s great to observe more women entering the industry. Certainly on the engineering side of things, there are a lot coming through the ranks and many are also making career changes into that sector.
In terms of how I’ve personally found it being a woman, when I started in the industry over 10 years ago, it was quite set in its ways. It would be very common for you to be the only woman in the room. What genuinely empowers me is to witness the change now. Not only are there more women in the industry, but we’re seeing women holding senior leadership positions, really driving change and hopefully presenting themselves as role models to entice even more people into the sector.
One of the biggest challenges within the data centre operational space currently is scaling while maintaining sustainability and renewable solutions, particularly within a more decentralised model. Could you share your thoughts on that?
At the moment, the absolute key focus within the industry sector is power. That literally is the question: where are we going to get power from? How are we going to energise these sites? And also, critically, at what pace and speed do they need that energy? There are a lot of headlines at the moment talking about building 500-megawatt data centres, even gigawatt data centres. In the UK, our actual physical infrastructure, our grid infrastructure, was simply not built for that; it was never designed for that scale.
So, the challenges we’re facing are how we innovate to support that demand. That’s where, for example, our solution at Xela Energy comes in; it’s about providing that additionality to the grid, which adds vital security. The challenges also involve changing the status quo of how people think they should be working within a data centre environment.
It’s the same with sustainability, actually. It’s always been a topic, something that people felt they had to be seen to be doing. But in the last three or four years, you’ve seen a definitive shift, certainly from a hyperscaler perspective. They now have full ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) teams. It’s no longer something someone can just wear as a hat for one day before returning to their main job; it has to be an all-encompassing commitment – you have to be completely ‘all in’ on it.
There are challenges in bringing in the right talent to support all these changes. We’ve obviously touched on engineering, but the power solutions and energy solutions emerging have huge skill shortages in terms of the demand for expertise on how to actually blend all of these solutions to support the data centre. You’ve got ESG, all of those skill sets are in high demand and therefore it’s a very competitive market for those recruiting in those pockets because companies are investing heavily and want the ‘crème de la crème’, if you like.
One challenge that I think the industry is very much starting to overcome is that, before, in terms of recruiting the right talent, we always looked at very particular pockets – specific educational backgrounds, particular experiences. Whereas now, because of the rapid development, we’re having to look outside of that. Engineering is a prime example: there are many people now who don’t come from a strict M&E (mechanical and electrical) technical background, but they possess phenomenal engineering skills that translate and transfer beautifully into a data centre environment. So, we’re bringing in those diverse skill sets, which is certainly driving change. And because they’re seeing the benefits of it, they’re starting to think, “Okay, this is alright, we can go with this.” But yes, there are still so many challenges, and I can’t foresee a quick fix for any of them coming forward.
In terms of the skills gap, your background as a recruiter must be quite helpful in seeing the larger picture.
If you look at technology as an overarching title, the skill shortage is everywhere, from entry-level right up to leadership positions. And then if you look at the departments within a data centre – you’ve got compliance, the legal side of things, marketing and sales, as you say, not necessarily just the technical and engineering side. There is so much that goes into actually making a data centre function.
When I was at Custodian, for instance, security – nobody thought about having manned security 24/7. And that’s the other thing: the ‘softer’ side, the ‘fluffier’ side of data centres, like your sales and marketing, they tend to operate more traditional working hours. However, when you look at anything from security to engineering, they’re 24/7, 365 days a year.
That’s a very different workforce to manage compared to a nine-to-five operation. We do not close over Christmas, we do not close over bank holidays; our clients are relying on us and paying us to ensure we are there, present, and available. So, you’re almost looking at doubling those roles because you have these shift patterns that you have to fill. There are a lot of complexities that aren’t necessarily seen or spoken about; it’s not just filling a nine-to-five role.
Data centres in general get a bad public rap – especially when it comes to hot button issues like climate change. How can this be turned around?
The public perception is a very real issue, and it’s actually preventing growth within the industry. There are so many data centres that have been rejected at the planning stages purely because of the public’s perception of what they actually are. And you’re a hundred percent right; there’s a massive education piece needed behind what a data centre actually does and how much, unknowingly, everyone uses it.
You use it every single day, I’m afraid to say. When you’re annoyed because your Netflix isn’t working, potentially it’s a network issue that ultimately relates to a data centre at some point. Or when you have people who live in more rural, remote areas and they know they can’t get super-fast broadband, that’s because you don’t have a data centre very close to you that can provide a point of presence to enable it.
However, I’m torn on this one. Somebody said to me, there’s a part of it that’s like, we all fly – we’re all in these metal cans, we’ve all flown out here. Do we intrinsically understand how an aeroplane works? Do we truly grasp the engineering and the mechanisms behind it? No, but we understand the byproduct and the benefit to us. I think there’s a push in the industry now that we should be more open and we should lift the lid on what goes on within a data centre.
However, I actually think it’s more about an education piece to explain the byproduct, the benefit to the end-user. So, the example I’ve just given: your Netflix, your Teams, your WhatsApp – all of that, that is the hub that holds it. This ‘cloud’, unfortunately, is not a place in the sky; it’s physical infrastructure.
I have a 16-year-old daughter whose life is literally her phone and TikTok and all of these things. So, if there’s a way of educating and saying, “That does not exist without a data centre. The world that we are living in does not exist.” That’s the key.
I don’t think we will be relatable if we go into, “Oh, and we have a PUE of 1.2, and we have this ATS and UPS…”
That’s not going to land, it’s not going to resonate with people. But what it brings to them, their benefits, that byproduct – that’s the hook. And in short answer to your question, sorry, that was a very long answer, it’s about making our content that we put out in the public space relatable and tangible, and not trying to overcomplicate it, not trying to make it overly…
How can you make it more relatable to the public?
At Custodian, my previous company, we had a YouTube channel that had hundreds of thousands of views and subscribers – and we actually took people inside the data centre. We did ‘day in the life of a NOC engineer’ [Network Operations Centre] and everything, to try and explain. But it wasn’t heavily technical; it was just about understanding this is what goes into it on a really top-level, base-level.
And you are right, it used to be purely a tech-led industry. It’s not anymore, and it’s really, really changing. Hopefully, with that, there will be more tangible content that general people can relate to. And it’s also all of our responsibilities as well. We work in the industry, we have a voice, we have a platform. Instead of us sitting in conferences like this where we’re talking to one another, we need to be out in the community and really pushing that content out, but again, in a tangible, relatable format.
Data centres have to show that they are operating sustainably. What are your thoughts on micro nuclear reactors (SMRs) as off-grid power sources? And what’s you forecast for them?
So, SMRs are a topic that I personally find fascinating! Could it potentially assist with the power issues that we’re speaking about? A hundred percent! However, public perception again will play a huge part. Governmental impact will also play a huge part. But we’re looking at them as a solution that will be ready in a decade – if you speak to people in the industry that are actually developing them. And there are a lot of people now that are investing heavily in technology, which is great to see. Hopefully, those investments will advance that solution and make it more viable.
What I would love to see is a data centre, powered by an SMR, so it’s effectively its own little microgrid, not taking away from the main grid, which you and I in our homes could be affected by, not putting strain on it. That is an ideal for me – that they operate in silo, independently.
And everybody understands why they’re there, what good they’re actually bringing, how they’re giving back to the community. They do do lots of good, we just don’t always get the best rap, basically. But there is so much good. So yes, they will play a part in the future, I have no doubt. It’s just when, and it’s also who’s going to be the first to actually take that plunge.
Where will Xela Energy – previously Clean Energy Capital – will be going over the next five years, and what is your game plan?
So for us, the last three years since our inception have been about building an actual product, if you like. We’ve focused heavily on acquiring land parcels and everything that gives us a tangible byproduct to discuss with our clients and meet their demand.
With the rebrand to Xela Energy, we are absolutely looking for change. We are looking to innovate within the industry, and more importantly, we are looking to turn our vision into real, true progress within the sector. We want to see a world powered by secure, scalable, sustainable power. As we’ve just discussed, we are having to think outside that traditional box now, and Xela Energy will be at the forefront of that; we’ll be a significant part of that transition.
