IES Consulting have carried out LEED Energy modelling on over 10 Data Centre projects in Ireland for a large number of high profile, global organisations.
IES Consulting have carried out LEED Energy modelling on over 10 Data Centre projects in Ireland for a large number of high profile, global organisations, all of which have achieved or are on track to achieve LEED for New Construction (NC) Gold or Platinum ratings. The services provided by IES Consulting enabled the projects to score very highly in LEED Energy points, with some gaining the maximum available, playing a major part in the projects achieving the desired LEED ratings.
For Data Centres there are 18 LEED Energy points available, plus 1 for innovation if you exceed 54% improvement in energy efficiency over the ASHRAE baseline model, so LEED Energy modelling plays a massive part in achieving a Gold or Platinum rating – 33% of what’s required for a Gold rating and 25% for platinum.
Being largely located in Ireland, the energy modelling proved that the Data Centres did not require mechanical cooling due to the cooler climate there. IES Consultants showed that the Data Centres could maintain the required temperature and conditions to operate the servers, through natural ventilation and high efficiency fans.
The monthly energy bill for a Data Centre is typically very high – close to the equivalent of that for an entire small city. So by showing that the clients could maintain the conditions in the Data Centre for the servers to operate without the need of mechanical cooling, IES Consulting contributed to significant cost and energy savings – approximately 40% on the space cooling energy loads.
Another significant energy savings measure that the IES Consulting team modelled was the virtualisation of servers. Computers and servers within Data Centres make up 80-90% of the buildings energy, so the virtualisation contributes hugely to the energy savings.
On several of the projects IES also helped clients achieve the LEED Daylighting credit.
For more information on how our consultants can help you with LEED Energy Modelling on your Data Centre projects please contact consulting@iesve.com.