Ireland’s ‘Data Center Cluster’ Profile Park has another high-profile name to add to its belt – Digital Realty Trust (DRT), which has just purchased a 10-acre development site suitable for 193,000 sq ft of data center space with 11.5MW of power.

Profile Park, 15km outside of Dublin, is already home to Microsoft’s 303,000 mega data center used for cloud computing services which opened in 2009, and Telecity, which last year said it is more than doubling available power to its Dublin data center.

Google also announced plans last year to build a 75m euro data center at the park, which covers 100 acres.

After DRT’s purchase, only 79 acres remains in the park which offers data center ready sites with access to multiple telecom routes connecting Europe and the US.

DRT’s VP of Sales Adam Levine said like many other companies that have invested in the park, from Google to Telecity, DRT was attracted by the cooling opportunities offered by Dublin’s climate. He said DRT expects to see (Power Usage Effectiveness ratings (PUEs) of about 1.15 for each of the four data center buildings it constructs on the site.

“Dublin has an ideal climate for deploying an indirect air optimization design,” Levine said.

“This significantly improves a data center’s energy efficiency by lower its PUE and therefore its total cost of occupancy.”

Google said in September it will use free air cooling for its data center which will be used to serve search, gmail and other web services.

Dublin’s climate can see average temperatures in January of 8.3 degrees Celsius while in July it can rise to 19.6 degrees Celsius.

Digital Realty Trust CEO Michael F Foust said the new Dublin data center will be built in a phased approach, providing more space using DRT’s Turn-Key Datacenter design to build out as and when customers require.

Digital Realty Trust has been expanding its footprint globally in recent years, with new builds announced in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and India.

In Asia Pacific it has committed to investing US$1bn in 2011 and 2012.