De-risking data centre construction
Author: Joe Peck
In this article for DCNN, Straightline Consulting’s Craig Eadie discusses how the rapid rise of hyperscale and AI-driven data centres is amplifying project complexity and risk, as well as why comprehensive commissioning from day one is now critical.
Craig highlights how long-lead equipment delays, tightening grid constraints, and beginning commissioning before quality control can derail builds, stressing the need for commissioning teams to actively manage supply chains, verify equipment readiness, and address power availability early:
How can comprehensive commissioning de-risk data centre construction?
Data centres are the backbone of the global economy. As more businesses and governments depend on digital infrastructure, demand for hyperscale and megascale facilities is surging. With that growth comes greater risk. Project timelines are tighter, systems more complex, and the cost of failure has never been higher.
From small enterprise facilities to multi-megawatt hyperscale builds, it’s critical that commissioning teams control and mitigate risk throughout the process. It’s rarely one big crisis that causes a data centre project to fail. More often, it’s a chain of small missteps – from quality control and documentation to equipment delivery or communication – that compound into disaster.
Taking a comprehensive approach to commissioning from day one to handover can significantly de-risk the process.
Managing upwards (in the supply chain)
It wasn’t long ago that a 600 kW project was considered large. Now, the industry routinely delivers facilities of 25, 40, or even 60 MW. Both sites and the delivery process are getting more complex as well, with advanced systems, increasing digitisation, and external pressures on manufacturers and their supply chains. However, the core challenges remain the same; it’s just the consequences that have become far more serious.
Long-lead equipment like generators or switchgear can have wait times of 35 to 50 weeks. Clients often procure equipment a year in advance, but that doesn’t guarantee it will arrive on time. There’s no use expecting delivery on 1 July if the manufacturer is still waiting on critical components. Commissioning teams can de-risk this process by actively managing the equipment supply chain. Factory visits to check part inventories and verify assembly schedules can ensure that if a generator is going to be late, everyone knows early enough to re-sequence commissioning activities and keep the project moving. The critical path may shift, but the project doesn’t grind to a halt.
Managing the supply chain on behalf of the customer is an increasingly important part of commissioning complex, high-stakes facilities like data centres. Luckily, a lot of companies are realising that spending a little up front is better than paying a few hundred thousand dollars every week when the project is late.
Securing power
More and more clients are facing grid limitations. As AI applications grow, so too do power demands, and the utilities often can’t keep pace. A data centre without power is just an expensive warehouse, which is why some clients are turning to behind-the-meter solutions like near-site wind farms or rooftop solar to secure their timelines, while bigger players are negotiating preferential rates and access with utilities. This approach is meeting with increasingly stern regulatory pushback in a lot of markets, however.
You can have a perfectly coordinated build, but if the grid can’t deliver power on time, it’s game over. Power availability needs to be considered as early as possible in the process and sometimes you have to get creative about solving these challenges.
Commissioning without quality control is just firefighting
One of the most common mistakes we see is starting commissioning before quality control is complete. This turns commissioning into a fault-finding exercise instead of a validation process. The intended role of commissioning is to confirm that systems have been installed correctly and work as designed. If things aren’t ready, commissioning becomes firefighting, and that’s where schedules slip.
Data centres are not forgiving environments. You can’t simply shut down a hyperscale AI facility to fix an oversight after it’s gone live. There is no “more or less right” in commissioning. It’s either right or it isn’t.
Technology-driven transparency and communication
One of the biggest improvements we’ve seen in recent years is through better project visibility. By using cutting edge platforms like Facility Grid, commissioning teams have a complete cradle-to-grave record of every asset in a facility. If a switchboard is built in a factory in Germany and installed in a project in France, it’s tracked from manufacturing to installation. Every test, every piece of documentation is uploaded. If a server gets plugged into a switchboard, the platform knows who did it, when they did it, what comments were made, with a photographic backup of every step.
It means that commissioning, construction, and design teams can collaborate across disciplines with full transparency. Tags and process gates ensure that no stage is marked complete until all required documentation and quality checks are in place.
That traceability removes ambiguity. It helps keep everyone accountable and on the same page, even on the most complex projects when adjustments are an essential part of reducing the risk of delays and disruption.
The biggest differences between a project that fails and one that succeeds are communication and clear organisational strategies. Precise processes, reliable documentation, early engagement, and constant communication – everyone on the project team needs to be pulling in the same direction, whether they’re a part of the design, construction, or commissioning and handover processes.
This isn’t just about checking boxes and handing over a building; commissioning is about de-risking the whole process so that you can deliver a complex, interconnected, multi-million pound facility that works, that’s safe, and that will stay operational long after servers spin up and the clients move in. In the past, the commissioning agent was typically seen as a necessary evil. Now, in the data centre sector and other high-stakes, mission critical industries, commissioning is a huge mitigator of risk and an enabler of success.
