Jenna Lipscomb is a Green Building Consultant with CTG Energetics. She specializes in sustainability for existing buildings, and has managed a variety of LEED EB O&M, LEED CI, and Retro-Commissioning Projects. Jenna is based in CTG’s Denver office.
I wanted to alert you of some recent Energy Star changes that may affect your building and Portfolio Manager account. If you only have time for the highlights, here they are:
- As of June, 2010 it is no longer permissible to subtract from building totals the square footage and metered energy consumption of data centers or server closets.
- Data Center Space Type should be used in place of subtracting data center SF and energy consumption
- Data center energy consumption data should ONLY include IT load, not cooling, lighting, etc. This might require a meter configuration change
- Consumption estimate function can be used until June 2012 if meters are not installed
- Data center meters required as of June 2012 in order to use the "Data Center" space type.
Details:
In June of 2010, the EPA reevaluated the way Data Centers should be classified and how their energy consumption should be reported. It is now no longer permissible to subtract the square footage and the metered energy consumption of the data centers out of the total building square footage and total building energy consumption. Data centers must be broken out into a 'data center' space type.
Data centers are now defined as "spaces specifically designed and equipped to meet the needs of high density computing equipment such as server racks used for data processing and storage. Typically these facilities require dedicated uninterruptible power supplies and cooling systems." This space type no longer includes server closets and computer training rooms. If there is any square footage in your portfolio previously defined as data center, please reevaluate what amount meets the new definition of data center. All other spaces (hot spots, data closets, computer rooms, etc) that do not meet this definition should be added back to the office space type. The energy being sub-metered from such non-data center spaces cannot be used (deducted) in Portfolio Manager.
By June 2012, the spaces meeting the definition of data center must to be sub metered in order to take credit for having a data center. The requirements for sub metering have also changed. It is no longer permissible to meter the entire disproportionate load on the data center (IT, cooling, lighting, etc). EPA now requires that only the IT load be measured and reported. This will most likely require a change to your metering configuration to accommodate this data collection.
At CTG we recently investigated the reasons for this seemingly strange requirement. We learned that the EPA has spent years collecting data on the energy consumption of data centers of various sizes and their cooling and lighting loads required to sustain the energy intense operation. As such, the EPA built the data center space type algorithm off of the IT load, such that an appropriate cooling load is allocated based on the IT consumption. In this way, the EPA is setting a baseline for the non-IT disproportionate power that adjusts based on the IT load the data center is carrying. The result is a standardized method of measuring the performance of data centers against each other, and incentivizes data centers to be run more efficiency (sizing cooling loads appropriately rather than just adding more cooling units when servers get added).
What this means for you
We've been working with our clients to determine whether metering configuration changes are required. Given that the 2-year window the EPA has allowed for metering changes is set to expire in June 2012, we are encouraging clients to make changes as soon as possible. After June 2012 you will no longer be able to use an 'estimate' function within the data center space type, and metered data will be required. If you install sub-meters by June, you'll be able to collect and report on a year's worth of accurate data.
... If you decide to wait
If you decide to wait and metered data is still unavailable as of June 2012, your data center square footage cannot be defined as "data center" and must be added back into the “office space” type. Needless to say, this will lower the building score and will not be an accurate reflection of your building performance. A little bit of work now will position you for an easy transition next June, and will help you maintain your ENERGY STAR rating.
What to do now
I recommend reviewing additional literature from the EPA that discusses these changes in greater detail – we've posted the document here.
If you have any further questions regarding these changes and how they affect your specific Portfolio Manager account, I'm happy to answer any questions you have. I can be reached in CTG's Denver office at 303-573-0070.
Thanks,
-Jenna
Contact: ctg@ctgenergetics.com
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