365 Main Inc., developer and operator of the data centers, announced all new centers would be LEED-certified for green building.
Its new data center in Newark, Calif. will be the first LEED-certified data center in the country. Design and construction has begun on the 136,410-square-foot facility, which will open in Q4 2007.
The aggregate power consumption by servers and data centers in the US has more than doubled since 2000 to about 45 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2005, accounting for about 1.2% of the country’s electricity consumption, roughly equal to the power drawn by the nation’s color televisions. According to a 2007 report by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientist Dr. Jonathan G. Koomey, the electricity costs for the servers and associated infrastructure reached $2.7 billion in 2005 and is increasing steadily.
Green features at the Newark facility include:
— Recycled and regionally sourced construction materials.
— Computer Room Air Handlers (CRAHs) that consume 30 percent less energy than traditional CRAHs by allowing air conditioning units to intelligently ramp up and down to achieve required under-floor air pressure.
— Make Up Air Handler units with outside air economizers that use 100 percent outside air on days when the temperature is cool enough to achieve data center cooling requirements.
— Various other improvements, including energy-efficient lighting, lighting controls, water-efficient landscaping and alternative transportation modifications.
Said Chris Dolan, CEO, “Pledging to build only LEED-certified data centers is a significant undertaking, but we believe in the importance of green development, and we are extremely proud to be the first data center developer and operator to make this promise.”
365 Main’s modern facilities feature specialized back-up generators that run continuously, eliminating the need for thousands of back-up batteries featured in traditional data centers that must be replaced every five to seven years. The Continuous Power System (CPS) is an efficient energy source that is much lighter on the environment.
In March, Pacific Gas and Electric Company recognized 365 Main’s San Francisco data center for its noteworthy load-reduction accomplishments while participating in PG&E’s Critical Peak Pricing (CPP) program, which is designed to curtail energy load during critical peak days to offset the possibility of an energy emergency. PG&E reported that in 2006 the data center saved $70,000 in utility costs by utilizing an innovative testing procedure for back-up generators.
Last month 365 Main announced that it had joined The Green Grid, a global nonprofit consortium of technology companies and professionals dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems.
Loading...