Case study · Commissioning
Confidential Hyperscale Portfolio
About 550 MW across four active campuses in Frankfurt, Paris, Phoenix, and Berlin. About 3,000 quality issues caught per construction phase at each site, most of them before final testing.
The challenge
Four campuses, three countries, one standard.
Four greenfield hyperscale campuses running simultaneously, in three countries, each with its own builder, subcontractor chain, and owner requirements. The critical infrastructure on these sites had to perform to the operator's standard and to the IT requirements of single-tenant clients whose systems would integrate directly with the building's controls. Getting it wrong in one phase does not stay contained.
At this scale, the documentation and reporting load alone can overwhelm a team. Without systematic quality tracking, findings arrive faster than anyone can act on them, and the schedule slips before anyone has named the problem. Each campus also had its own friction points: labor shortages in Germany, compressed review timelines in Paris, contractual access limits in Phoenix that required building alternative verification approaches from scratch.
The aggregate risk across this portfolio is real. A delay on a 150 MW campus costs more than a delay on a small building. Problems that surface late cost far more to fix.
Our role
One core team across the whole portfolio.
PGCIS provided full commissioning oversight and reporting across all four campuses, covering the complete sequence from prefunctional checks through integrated systems testing, with quality assurance and compliance verification at each level. The same core team held responsibility across all four sites. That continuity is what makes pattern recognition possible: a problem that surfaced in Frankfurt in Phase 1 gets caught in Paris before it becomes a finding.
On each campus, we ran daily and weekly reporting that gave builders and developers the data they needed to act quickly, not a week later. We reviewed technical documentation, commissioning scripts, and test procedures against schedule. Repetitive documentation work was automated so our team could spend time in the field, witnessing the actual work.
Every quality finding was logged, tracked, and closed. Lessons from earlier phases fed into later ones. Lessons from each campus circulated across the portfolio.
Outcomes
What happened
| Campus | Capacity | Size | Quality issues found |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frankfurt metro | 112 MW | 1,000,000 SF, 2 buildings, PUE 1.25 | ~3,000 across phases 1 and 2 |
| Paris metro | 150 MW | 900,000 SF, 2 buildings, PUE 1.3 | ~3,000 in initial phases |
| Phoenix metro | 240 MW | 1,500,000 SF, 7 buildings, PUE 1.25 | ~3,000 across phases |
| Berlin metro | 56 MW | 474,000 SF, 4 buildings, PUE 1.25 | ~3,000 across phases 1 to 3 |
About 550 MW commissioned across the portfolio. Approximately 12,000 quality issues identified and resolved in total. Defect-free turnover achieved on completed phases. Real-time reporting maintained across all four active sites simultaneously. On-site substations ranged from 110 kV in Frankfurt to 230 kV in Phoenix, each requiring its own verification scope.
What this proves
The number is the argument.
About 3,000 quality issues per campus, found by our team, on campuses built by experienced contractors. The problems were always there. Systematic oversight finds them before final testing; ad hoc review finds them after. One team across all four sites turns a pattern in one city into an early warning in the next.