German data centre wins global LEED first

Financial services giant Citi's data centre has been named the first building of its type in the world to achieve a LEED Platinum rating.

The Frankfurt-based project is being hailed as a milestone for ‘green’ building and IT globally. It is also the first building in Germany to achieve LEED accreditation from the US Green Building Council (USGBC).

The building sets new standards in sustainable design, set to bring about dramatic changes in the way that energy-hungry data centres are designed and built in the future. Incorporating a raft of environmental measures that achieve maximum sustainability with no compromise to operation or reliability, the building proves that this sector can be built to perform at optimum levels of energy efficiency and environmental consciousness.

The notable achievements of this project included the following facts:

• The data centre uses just 30% of the power that a similarly-sized data centre would require;
• 72% of the roof is a vegetative ‘green’ roof that keeps the building cooler in summer and warmer in winter, as well as absorbing rainwater and reducing the summer ‘heat island’ effect;
• The building will use outside-air cooling 63% of the time;
• 27% of the materials were recycled, while 40% were sourced locally; and
• By virtualising a high number of the computers in the data centre, the company needed to use 250 km less cabling to wire the facility.

“Close cooperation between our real estate and technology groups has been important to achieving major advances in the way in which we manage technology energy demand in Citi,” said Stephen Ellis, Citi’s head of technology infrastructure in Europe.

“The energy-efficient design of the data centre, coupled with extensive use of new, energy-efficient virtualised technology, housed in innovative modular cabinets, has optimised energy use and reduced the data cabling needs.”

In addition, the data centre is highly water-efficient. It uses reverse osmosis water treatment for cooling, which saves 50 million litres of water use a year; the water-efficient fixtures installed reduce indoor water use by 41%; and irrigation on-site uses 100% harvested rainwater.

Overall, Citi expects the facility to save 11,750 tons of carbon dioxide a year.

To date, data centre facilities use the same LEED ratings as other commercial facilities, but in February 2009 a group of industry leaders submitted a draft LEED rating for data centres to the USGBC that aims to customise elements of the certification process for hi-tech facilities.