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Draft "LEED For Datacenters" Now Available

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a certification program sponsored by the non-profit U.S. Green Buildings Council (USGBC) that is a nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) yesterday posted a draft "LEED for Datacenters" on its website that the lab developed in partnership with a who’s who of datacenter industry groups, including the ASHRAE, The Green Grid, The Uptime Institute, 24x7, the European Commission, the Critical Facilities Roundtable and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group.

Led by LBNL's William Tschudi and Ray Pfeifer, the goal of the project was similar to a previous LBNL project funded by the California Energy Commission that developed environmental performance criteria for laboratories that was submitted to USGBC for consideration and adoption.

This DRAFT is still in development and was made available for informational purposes only. It is not an official release of the USGBC. Each of organizations listed above is currently doing a formal review, after which LBNL will complete a final consensus draft for submission to the USGBC. It's quite likely there will be revisions to the following checklist based on input from key stakeholders in the data center industry. Barring a prolonged revision process, the USGBC may approve a data center specific LEED New Construction (NC) standard sometime this year.

LEED Project Checklist for Datacenters (new construction)

Sustainable Sites (13 Total Points)

• Construction Activity Pollution Prevention (Required Prerequisite)
  
• Fuel Storage and Handling, Storm Water Discharge Protection (Required Prerequisite)
  
• Site Selection ( 1 point)
  
• Development Density & Community Connectivity ( 1 point)
  
• Brownfield Redevelopment ( 1 point)
  
• Site Development (max 5 points) Protect or Restore Habitat / Maximize Open Space /Impacts to Local Infrastructure (Power Grid) / Sewage (Cooling Tower) / Noise Impacts (Generators, Cooling Towers) / Air Quality & Emmissions Impacts
  
• Stormwater Design (max 2 points) Quantity / Quality Control
  
• Heat Island Effect (max 2 points) Non-Roof / Roof
  
• Light Pollution Reduction ( 1 point)

Water Efficiency (6 Total Points)

• Water Efficient Landscaping (max 2 points) Reduce by 50%, No Potable Use or No Irrigation
  
• Innovative Wastewater Technologies ( 1 point)
  
• Water Use Reduction (max 3 points) 20%- 30% Reduction / 20%> Total Building Water Use

Energy & Atmosphere (62 Total Points)

• Fundamental Commissioning & Energy Efficiency Validation (Required Prerequisite)
  
• Minimum Energy Performance (Required Prerequisite)
  
• Fundamental Refrigerant Management (Required Prerequisite)
  
• Minimum Energy Metering & Reporting of DCiE Metric (Required Prerequisite)
  
• Enhanced Energy Sub-Metering & Automated Reporting of Metrics of Performance (max 6 points) points awarded on a sliding scale depending if datacenter has on-site renewable and/or power generation
  
• Optimize Infrastructure Energy Performance, Above ASHRAE 90.1 (10-34 points) 5-17% New Buildings or 2-14% Existing Building Renovations
  
• On-Site Renewable Energy (max 12 points) 2.5-20% Renewable Energy
  
• On-Site Generation, Based upong Reduction in Source Energy ) (max 3 points) 7.5-15% Energy

• Enhanced Commissioning ) (1 point)
  
• Enhanced Refrigerant Management (1 point)
  
• Enhanced Environmental Measurement & Verification (1 point)
  
• Green Power(max 4 points) 7.5-17.5% Renenwable Energy

• Storage & Collection of Recyclables (Required Prerequisite)
  
• Building Reuse (max 3 points) % of Existing Walls, Floors, Roof, Interior Non-Structural elements maintained
  
• Construction Waste Management (max 2 points) % diverted from Disposal
  
• Materials Reuse (max 2 points)
  
• Recycled Content (max 2 points), % (post-consumer and pre-consumer)
  
• Regional Materials (max 2 points), % Extracted, Processed & Manufactured Regionally

Indoor Environmental Quality (6 Total Points)

• Minimum IAQ Performance (Required Prerequisite)
  
• Outdoor Air Delivery Monitoring(1 point)
  
• Increased Ventilation(1 point)
  
• (max 2 points), Before Construction and During Occupancy
  
• Low-Emitting Materials (max 2 points), Adhesives & Sealants, Paints & Coatings,
  
• Controllability of Systems (1 point) Lighting
  
• Acoustic Environment (1 point)