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EPA launches Energy Star label for data centres

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has launched an Energy Star label for the best performing data centres.

Data centres currently account for 1.5% of total US electricity consumption, costing around $4.5 billion a year. And this amount is expected to double over the next five years.

But modest improvements in the energy efficiency of data centres of just 10% would reduce costs by more than $450 million a year and save enough energy to power 350,000 homes.

The EPA hopes to encourage improvements by allowing data centres in the top 25% compared to their peers to qualify for an Energy Star label.

Data centres will have to independently verify their energy performance based on the power usage effectiveness (PUE) metric, which was recently rubber-stamped by an international consortium of regulatory organisations from US, Europe and Japan, to apply for a label.

Meanwhile, a data centre in Newport, South Wales operated by Next Generation Data has become the first in Europe to be run entirely on renewable energy.

NGD Europe has committed to purchase 100% renewable energy from SmartestEnergy for the 70,000 m² facility, which includes BT and Logica among its tenants.

“In an industry which consumes over 2% of the UK’s total power supply, it is a significant step to ensuring our operations are as competitive, efficient and environmentally-friendly as possible,” says Nick Razey, CEO of Next Generation Data.

Mark Larard, director of the Data Centre Advisory Group for global real estate advisors, Jones Lang LaSalle, says that the IT industry is in a “state of flux” over how to address the power issue.

“NGD continues to challenge industry expectations, and it will be interesting to see if others try and follow,” he adds.

For further information:
www.energystar.gov/datacenters
www.nextgenerationdata.co.uk/
www.joneslanglasalle.co.uk/datacentres

08 June 2010

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