Emerson Network Power is working on “greener” designs for uninterruptible power supply (UPS) technologies for the data center as part of a pledge to an EU project that hopes to bring about standards for more environmentally friendly data center technologies.

The Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) pilot, led by the European Commission, wants to define common calculation rules for assessing the impact technologies used for data center operations have on overall efficiency measures.

Emerson Network Power is participating in the PEF as a sub-committee member looking at UPS designs.

It will provide UPS products that will be tested by the PEF using a method which tracks the environmental performance of a good or service throughout its lifecycle.

In its wider context, the PEF hopes to track data center operations looking at energy used and wasted across the organization using a measurement called Organizational Environmental Footprint (OEF).

“The OEF is calculated using aggregate data representing the flows of resources and waste that cross a defined organizational boundary,” an OEF paper, which is available for download here, said.

“Once the OEF is calculated it may be disaggregated to the product level using appropriate allocation keys.

“In theory, the sum of the PEFs of the products provided by an organization over a certain reporting interval should be close to its OEF for the same reporting interval.”

The commission adopted the PEF method in 2013 and it is currently undertaking a three-year trial on its methods with the aim of eventually creating a single market for green products.

Emerson Network Power VP and general manager for Power Systems in MEA Franco Costa said Emerson will be committed to the standards as it develops the next-generation of data center power solutions.

He said the company will be submitting products for testing with product performance benchmarks and will be working with other partners and stakeholders to validate compliance and verification systems.

“Emerson Network Power has a responsibility to be at the forefront in forging the way for the future, as the industry collectively seeks to achieve standardization across Europe,” Costa said.

You can download the draft OEF paper from the DatacenterDynamics website here.