Green legislation guide for data centres

The Green Grid has announced the launch of The Green Grid Energy Policy Research For Data Centres, a plain English guide to European data centre legislation affecting the industry in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

The Green Grid is a global consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centres and business computing ecosystems. It has launched what it describes as an easily digestible guide to policies affecting the data centre industry in EMEA. The guide, which provides organisations with everything they need to know about current and forthcoming policies, is the latest initiative by The Green Grid to dramatically raise the energy efficiency of data centres in both the short and long term.

As climate change and fuel security have significantly moved up in the policy agenda, more comprehensive policy frameworks have been developed at both the European Union (EU) and national levels. The growth of data centres, and their energy intensity, means the industry will be particularly affected by the drive for energy efficiency of product design and building services.  In fact, this is one of the key highlights expected to result from the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in December this year. However, with the rising number and complexity of these frameworks, organisations may be unsure about the implications of the legislations, their responsibilities and how they should achieve this.

In order to help organisations achieve this, The Green Grid has created “The Green Grid Energy Policy Research For Data Centres”, a guide to existing and emerging energy policies affecting the data centre industry in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.  The report provides a summary of existing and forthcoming legislation, incentives and voluntary initiatives, along with practical steps for improvement and achievement.

“The overall finding from the report is that legislation is continuously tightening, and therefore it is advisable to innovate now and seek out opportunities to manage future implications for all data centres across the region,” said Vic Smith, Dell representative and EMEA Technical Work Group chair of The Green Grid.

www.thegreengrid.org