Energy Star label extends to cover green datacentres

After years of development, the US Environment Protection Agency (EPA) officially launched the new Energy Star label for datacentres this week, extending the popular energy efficiency certification scheme to cover server farms as well as individual servers and computers.

The labelling scheme, which has been developed following lengthy consultation with the IT industry, requires firms to measure the energy efficiency of their datacentres using the Power Usage Effectiveness metric – a measure designed to assess how much of the energy consumed by the datacentre is used to power useful work.

A licensed professional must then independently verify that the datacentre's energy performance claims are accurate before they are submitted to the EPA for review and approval.

To earn the Energy Star label, datacentres must demonstrate that they are in the top 25 per cent of their peer group.

The EPA said the new scheme would encourage firms to enhance the energy efficiency of their datacentres, adding that the latest government data shows that improving datacentre efficiency by just 10 per cent could save enough energy to power more than 350,000 homes and cut energy bills by more than $45m (£31m) a year.

According to EPA figures, datacentres remain one of the largest consumers of energy in the US, accounting for 1.5 per cent of total US electricity consumption at a cost of $4.5bn a year.