With Singapore set to become the data centre hub for the Asia-Pacific region, the government has established a standard that puts in place the necessary policies, systems and processes to improve data centre energy efficiency and mitigate environmental impact.

Called the Singapore Standard for Green Data Centres – Energy and Environmental Management Systems (SS564:2010), it is a certifiable management system developed by the IT Standards Committee together with the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and SPRING Singapore. It provides data centres with a framework and methodology to achieve energy efficiency.

Certificates were presented by RADM(NS) Ronnie Tay (fourth from left) to the seven pioneer adopters of the Singapore Standard for Green Data Centres.

Announced at the Green Data Centre Forum on 31 March 2011, the green standard is timely given the importance of data centres in the international economy.

“Data centres are critical in supporting the development and operations of nearly every sector of the economy. At the same time, they are contributors to the carbon footprint given their heavy usage of energy. The Singapore Standard for Green Data Centres is therefore very timely and will enable greater energy efficiency and environmental sustainability in our data centres,” said RADM(NS) Ronnie Tay, Chief Executive Officer of IDA.

Modelled after established international system standards, the Singapore Standard is based on a continual improvement framework which includes recommended metrics for data centres to measure and track their performance in energy efficiency, and identify the potential areas for improvement.

More importantly, it is a holistic paradigm which will help data centres manage their mechanical and electrical systems, IT equipment and data centre design.

The first seven organisations to adopt the Singapore Standard are 1-Net, National Library Board, Singapore Telecommunications, Resorts World Sentosa, IBM, Keppel Datahub, and the Nanyang Technological University High Performance Computing Centre.

Sharing their experiences during a panel discussion at the Green Data Centre Forum, the organisations spoke about their decision to adopt the standard and the benefits of doing so.

The panel discussion at the Green Data Centre Forum.

For example, IT solutions provider 1-Net recognised that achieving efficient power and cooling would enable the organisation to benefit from cost savings that could be passed on to its customers. “Becoming a green data centre has always been on top of our priority,” said Mr Yow Tau Keon, Managing Director, 1-Net Singapore. “Our commitment to customers is to consistently build, operate and maintain a sustainable and energy efficient data centre infrastructure to reduce cost and improve its performance.”

For Keppel Datahub, being certified compliant with the Singapore Standard is testament to the company’s holistic approach to “greening” its data centres.

“It is not just about savings, but long-term sustainability,” said Mr Bruno Lopez, Chief Executive Officer, Data Centres, Keppel T&T. “Standards help us measure against a level and forces everyone to level up. We have also benefitted from a lower total cost of ownership even though upfront costs are higher.”

Mr Yap Chee Yuen, Senior Vice President and Head, Innovation and Technology at Resorts World Sentosa (RWS), said that pursuing the Green Data Centre certification enabled the organisation to have an enhanced systematic approach in managing its data centre’s energy efficiency. “Certification is a testament to RWS’s sustainable development objective. Considerable effort has been made during the resort’s design phase to use breakthrough green technologies to reduce the environmental impact and our IT implementations are no exception.”