US EPA sets date for release of Energy Star rating for data centers

Scientists at the US Environmental Protection Agency are getting close to the end of a several-year-long effort of creating an Energy Star rating for data centers, a 1-100 rating that has been available for most other types of commercial buildings. The rating system for mission-critical facilities will be launched in early June, said the agency’s Alexandra Sullivan, who led the development of the rating.

The rating will be based on a data center efficiency metric the EPA team developed. It will be calculated by dividing total source energy delivered to the building uses by energy measured at the output of the UPS that feeds the IT equipment.

According to Sullivan, the EPA has so far rated more than 90,000 buildings, more than 8,000 of which have earned the Energy Star label.

While EPA’s metric is called PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) it is calculated differently than the PUE that was developed by the Green Grid, a consortium of IT companies and professionals that has enjoyed widespread use in the industry. The EPA’s PUE factors in energy rather than power. It also considers source energy to be energy used by the building and energy required to generate and deliver it, accounting for losses that result from conversion and distribution.

John Pflueger, member of the Grid’s board of directors and a technical committee chair for the organization, said the Grid was in discussions with EPA officials to bring the way both organizations’ PUE metrics are calculated in sync.

Donald Klein, VP of marketing and business development at Modius, a San Francisco-based provider of data center monitoring and management solutions, welcomed colaboration between the government agency and the industry group.

“The EPA and the Green Grid are showing good cooperation,” Klein said. “The EPA showing a willingness to use metrics which are already being adopted and developed in the industry. That shows willingness of the EPA to work with the industry.”

The EPA’s existing rating system for commercial buildings scores their energy performance on a 1-100 scale and issues an Energy Star label to buildings in the top 25 percent of those rated. The version for data centers will work in a similar way.

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