GE's appliances and lightning division has launched a new data center at the company's Appliance Park headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, whose energy efficiency and environmentally conscious design have earned it a LEED Platinum award.

Platinum is the highest-level award of the US Green Building Council's rating system for environmentally friendly building called LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

Rick Fedrizzi, president and CEO of the USGBC, said GE was joining an "elite group" of companies whose data centers had received the Platinum certification. According to GE, only six percent of LEED-certified buildings around the world have reached the highest level.

"Given the amount of energy data centers consume, achieving LEED Platinum will help GE reduce its environmental footprint, while moving the industry forward in its effort to reduce the global environmental impact of IT operations," he said.

Key elements that enabled the project to earn LEED Platinum included reuse of an existing building, energy efficient power and cooling infrastructure, efficient use of water, sourcing local materials, maximizing the use of recycling materials and recycling construction waste.

Instead of constructing a new building, GE retrofitted an unused manufacturing facility, maintaining nearly 100% of the walls, floor and roof. About 30% of construction materials were recycled and more than half of new materials were bought from suppliers within the surrounding region.

Much of the electrical infrastructure components came from other GE subsidiaries. Its Digital Energy business provided the UPS system whose eBoost technology gives it up to 99% efficiency, according to GE.

GE's Industrial Solutions subsidiary provided its Entellysis low-voltage switchgear and power-quality systems for the data center.