Kathmandu, June 13: An international level state-of-the-art data centre has been brought into operation by Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA).

In order to provide services to commercial companies in the future, the Authority has brought into operation an international level data centre with modern facilities along with the load dispatch centre at Syuchatar in Kathmandu, said the NEA.

On the ground floor of the three-storey building prepared using ‘pre-fabricated containers’, there is underground power distribution system monitoring, regulation and control and security operation room of the Kathmandu Valley. 

The office and network operation room are located on the first floor and the data centre is located on the top floor. The data centre has been built in compliance with Tier-III international standards prescribed for data centres. 

The data centre of this model built under the Digital NEA programme is the first in Nepal to fulfill the purpose of the Authority to make its service delivery digital and modern, said the NEA. 

In the data centre, all the data, including the server related to the information technology of the NEA, will be stored in an integrated manner.

Managing Director of NEA Kul Man Ghising said that with the data centre in operation, the Authority was now going to create its own private cloud for data storage. 

Ghising said that the process of building a disaster recovery centre at the new Butwal substation in Sunwal, Nawalparasi for data security had progressed. 

Until the disaster recovery centre is constructed, the old data centre currently at the head office of the Authority would be operated as a recovery centre. There are 40 information technology racks in the new data centre that has been brought into operation. 

It has 36 servers and four network racks. Uninterruptible power supply (N +1 power supply), humidity (cooling), automatic fire control, CCTV monitoring, continuous monitoring of operation and safety have been arranged to meet the requirements of Tier-III standards. 

Alternative arrangements have been made for uninterrupted power supply, said the NEA. Two generators of 1 megawatt capacity have been kept ready to operate the data centre safely in case there is a problem in the local and country’s power system. 

Two modular UPS of 300 kVA capacity have been installed. An optical fiber with an alternative route has been installed to connect the head office at Ratna Park and data centre of the Authority. 

The Authority’s head office and data centre are connected through optical fiber from Teku and Balaju. The staffers have been deployed to operate the data centre 24 hours a day, said the NEA.

For the construction of the centre, a contract was signed with the Chinese company Yantai Dongfang Wisdom Co. Limited in July 2021 and the work started from November of the same year.

The estimated cost of the centre, which was built with the investment of the government and the Authority and the concessional loan of the Asian Development Bank, is about Rs. 1.4 billion.