Singapore’s building regulator has announced a new scheme that rates energy-guzzling data centres on their environmental performance.
The Building and Construction Authority (BCA) said in a statement on Wednesday that the new Green Mark for Data Centres, which took two years to develop in partnership with the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), is aimed at encouraging businesses to make their data centres more energy efficient.
The high-tech city state and Asia’s financial hub is home to many banks and big businesses that host energy-consuming data centres that power the economy.
The BCA said that Singapore’s commercial data centre space is projected to increase by 50 per cent from 2010 to 2015, and therefore “it is important to look at how green and sustainable data centres are, given their heavy use of energy. “
Unveiling the scheme at the opening of the International Green Building Conference held at Marina Bay Sands on Wednesday, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, Ms Grace Fu, noted that energy-related costs are estimated to account for a hefty half of all operating expenditure in a typical data centre in Singapore.
“As data centres become more energy-intensive, this proportion is expected to grow over the years. These present opportunities to help data centres here embrace more green and energy efficient practices, which could then be a source of the industry’s competitive advantage,” said Ms Fu, who is also Second Minister for Environment and Water Resources and Foreign Affairs.
BCA’s move comes in the wake of increased scrutiny on how the highly-wired modern society is affecting the environment. The New York Times recently published a series on how data centres were wasting vast amounts of energy - debunking the notion that going digital meant going green.
The agency estimates that a typical large data centre in Singapore consumes energy equivalent to 10,000 households. Greening such data centres can help businesses achieve energy savings of up to 30 per cent, noted BCA.
Data centres that either occupy a purpose-built data centre building or are part of a larger building are eligible for the scheme, which assesses data centres based on five key criteria - energy efficiency, water efficiency, sustainable construction and management, and indoor environment quality as well as other green features.
Three data centres in Singapore – the Credit Suisse Regional Data Centre, Equinix SG2 Data Centre and the Singapore Tourism Board Data Centre - were named as the first to gain the new Green Mark ratings.
Banking giant Credit Suisse’s 10,000 sq ft centre was given the highest Platinum rating for its features such as efficient air-conditioning system and IT equipment, and using technology to reduce overall power demand.
The features helped the firm achieve energy savings of 3.85 million kilowatt hours annually, or cost savings of $1 million. A similar-sized data centre in Singapore consumes an average of 18.1 million kWh annually.
BCA’s chief executive John Keung said that while the original Green Mark scheme focused on building owners, “we are now shifting our attention to occupants.”
“Placing greater emphasis on users will help instill in them a sustainability mindset and allow them to play a greater role in Singapore’s green building movement,” he said.
IDA’s chief, Mr Ronnie Tay, said that as a growing number of companies look to host their IT operations in Singapore, “there is a need to ensure the sustainable development of data centres.”
To encourage companies to green their data centres, the government introduced in June a tax incentive known as Investment Allowance Scheme for Energy Efficiency Projects (Data Centres), which allows firms to claim 30 to 50 per cent of their expenses on installing energy efficient equipment in data centres as tax relief.
Eco-Business.com’s coverage of the International Green Building Conference 2012 is brought to you by City Developments Limited.
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