THE Building and Construction Authority (BCA) and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) unveiled changes to the Green Mark for data centres on Friday (Oct 18).
BCA said on its website said that the updated criteria for Green Mark certification, now in a “beta” or pre-release state, will replace the existing certification on Mar 1, 2025.
The green building rating system evaluates a building’s environmental impact and performance. The Green Mark certification awards points based on sustainability criteria in areas such as energy and water efficiency, sustainable construction and management and indoor environment quality.
The updated standard tightens the requirements for data centres to earn the mark. New data centres looking to achieve the Green Mark Gold Plus need to achieve a maximum power usage effectiveness (PUE) at 25 per cent IT load of 1.46, from 1.55 before.
The bar for the Platinum rating has also been raised. For a data centre to earn this higher certification, PUE at 25 per cent IT load is 1.39, from 1.5 before.
PUE is a ratio of the total energy used by the data centre to that of IT equipment energy used. A data centre with a lower PUE is more efficient.
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And, for the first time since the Green Mark certification was introduced, standards for water efficiency effectiveness (WUE) will be spelled out.
This metric is calculated by dividing the annual water consumption of a data centre over the annual IT energy used. A facility with a lower figure is more water-efficient.
To score half a point in this category, data centres will have to achieve a WUE of less than or equal to 2.2; one point is awarded for a WUE of less than or equal to 2. Before this, data centres needed only to install permanent water meters to monitor and track water consumption to score a point.
Under the new Green Mark certification, data centres will need to score 40 points (out of the maximum of 75 points) to earn the Gold Plus rating, and 50 points for the Platinum one.
The Business Times has reached out to BCA and IMDA for comments on whether existing data centres will need to be recertified.
IMDA said in May that, under its Green Data Centre Roadmap, the certification would be updated by end-2024 to raise the standards for energy efficiency in data centres.
IMDA advised data centres to evaluate and deploy more efficient cooling solutions, given that server-rack densities are rising with an increase in computing-intensive artificial intelligence workloads.
Solutions such as rear door heat exchangers, direct-to-chip cooling and immersion cooling were suggested as more effective ways to remove heat from IT equipment.
BCA and IMDA last refreshed the Green Mark for data centres in 2019. The certification for this class of buildings was introduced in 2012.
