Emerson opens $50M data center in North County
St. Louis American
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Emerson officially opened the doors of its new energy-efficient global data center Monday and celebrated the milestone with a special ceremony featuring Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, other dignitaries and Emerson employees.
Emerson, which is the St. Louis region's largest public company, invested $50 million in the facility and IT equipment. Sales for Emerson in fiscal year 2008 were $24.8 billion, and Emerson is ranked 94th on the Fortune 500 list of America's largest companies.
The data center features a 7,800-square-foot rooftop solar array - the largest in Missouri. With more than 550 solar panels, the data center can generate 100 kilowatts of energy, or enough to power the average American home for more than three days.
The 35,000-square-foot global data center will be 31 percent more energy-efficient than traditional data centers, thanks to the latest energy-efficiency technologies, precision cooling products, and recommended efficiency strategies from the company's Emerson Network Power business. No new jobs are expected to be created.
Stephen C. Hassell, vice president and chief information officer for the Ferguson-based company, said St. Louis was selected for the site because of reputation as a center for science, technology and innovation.
"Combined with the Midwest's plentiful and cost-efficient real estate, electrical power, and telecommunications networks, there's no place like home for building a global data center," Hassell said.
"One of Emerson's core business strategies is to deliver energy-efficiency solutions for businesses, data centers and telecommunications networks," said David N. Farr, Emerson chairman, chief executive officer, and president.
"When we embarked on the design and construction of our own data center, we knew we would have the opportunity to use the same Emerson technologies that we deliver to our customers."
Hassell and his Emerson team are currently overseeing the consolidation of more than 100 Emerson data centers around the world to just four. Two are completed - in St. Louis and Marshalltown, Iowa. The other two will be located in Europe and Asia.
"Emerson's high-tech data center is an example of the type of cutting-edge, next-generation investments that will make Missouri a leader in the 21st-century economy," Gov. Jay Nixon said. "Missouri and Emerson have had a long and successful relationship, and we look forward to continuing our work with Emerson in the years to come."
