Seabird Data Services - The Data Centre Becoming a Flexibility Powerhouse

Founded in 2017, Seabird Data Services (SDS) is a data centre providing data hosting services for High Performance Computing (HPC) hardware at two main sites in Boden and Mellerud (Sweden). Owned by Digital Resource Holdings (DRH), they have been working with Sympower since 2022 to become one of the most flexible grid stabiliser solutions in Sweden. 

SDS learnt of Sympower’s services through our partnership with Swedish electricity trading company, Bixia, a municipality-owned electricity company with customers all over Sweden. Beginning in May 2022, SDS started participating in demand response by contributing 9.4MW of capacity from their HPC systems to the FCR-D Up market. With Sympower’s help, they are also looking to participate in Sweden’s mFRR market. This has positioned Seabird Data Services to earn additional gross revenue in the coming years. 

Discovering the potential of HPC systems

As SDS pursued new avenues in energy flexibility, they recognised the need for demand-side flexibility to be part of the solution for the rising demand for energy and renewables integration. Despite no prior experience with demand response, Sympower’s collaboration with Bixia allowed SDS to contact Sympower about their flexibility potential. Their motivation to partake in demand response was to establish themselves as a leading grid stabiliser in Sweden. 

Sympower became critical in that venture, and in 2022, SDS worked directly with Sympower’s Technical Sales Engineer, Rosario Llenas, to run internal tests to discover the potential flexibility of their assets. On this, Rosario stated,

“Working with Seabird has been an extremely positive experience for us. Their strong desire to become a flexible company, along with the support they’ve received from Bixia, has enabled them to start benefiting from their assets sooner."

With such high energy consumption, there is a lot of potential to adjust the energy draw of HPC systems when necessary. Our technical teams identified several of Seabird Data Service’s HPC systems as suitable for participating in demand response. However, at the time, not all of these assets were accessible to testing. Once they became available again, they were swiftly added to the balancing markets.

Maximising profit by boosting flexibility

With the ability to quickly increase and decrease their power usage without significantly impacting  their overall functionality, HPC systems are ideal assets to respond to real-time fluctuations in grid demand. This inherent flexibility enabled SDS to initially sign 9.4MW on the Swedish FCR-D Up market. This market requires assets to respond within 2.5 seconds and to be fully activated within 30 seconds of the signal. Providers like SDS are compensated for quickly decreasing their electricity production in response to sudden frequency changes in the grid. 

While originally approved for 9.4MW, SDS is now able to bid a maximum of 10.4MW, through Sweden’s type qualification. Per older requirements, capacity could be added by a customer without further testing needed. The only requirements were that the added capacity does not exceed 1MW and is sourced from the same equipment as the originally approved capacity. Businesses that operate on this market, can expect earning a gross total of between €90,000 - €120,000 per megawatt per year.

Becoming a flexibility leader through the balancing market

After working with Sympower for almost two years, SDS is expanding their participation in Sweden’s balancing markets, and, with Sympower’s help, are entering the mFRR market. The mFRR market requires a far slower response time than FCR-D Up, and pays for reserves that can be manually dispatched within fifteen minutes to address grid frequency imbalances. The HPC systems reduce their load within this fifteen minute time frame when called upon by the grid operator. 

This additional contribution will not only increase SDS’s overall financial compensation, but raise their standing as a flexibility source for Sweden’s grid system. In continuing this collaboration with Sympower, SDS is well on their way to becoming a major grid-stabilising operation within Sweden. As Nachi Singh, Head of Datacenter Operations at Seabird Data Services, states,

“Sympower has accompanied SDS to become the electric grid stabilising operation we are today. From the Datacenter feasibility assessment in 2022 to first ancillary service qualification in 2023 and continuous program expansion in 2024. Sympower has been very supportive of our vision and great to work with.” 

The partnership between SDS and Sympower has proven to be a hugely positive one, with SDS receiving major financial compensation for contributing their flexible capacity to balancing markets. This success has given SDS the confidence to continue working with Sympower to realise their flexibility potential. Ultimately, Seabird sees this collaboration continuing well into the future, to help position themselves as a major contributor to the stability and security of Sweden’s electricity grid.

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