About NABERS for Data Centres
NABERS ratings for data centres provide an indication of the operational energy efficiency and environmental impact of data centres in Australia. We give your data centre a rating from one to six stars based on its Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), a globally accepted metric.
NABERS for data centres is based on a facility’s actual operational data, not design. Your NABERS rating can then be used to identify areas for operational improvements and cost savings, as well as to promote your environmental credentials to help you win business from blue-chip clients.
You can use your NABERS rating to compare your data centre’s energy performance to others across Australia.
NABERS Energy for Data Centres
There are three different levels of ratings depending on needs:
- IT Equipment: This rating is for organisations who own or manage their IT equipment (including servers, storage devices, network equipment) and do not control data centre support services such as air conditioning, lighting, and security. The rating benchmarks the emissions associated with the energy consumed by the IT equipment, allowing organisations to determine the efficiency of their equipment. The less energy consumed for a given level of capacity, the more efficient the data centre and the higher the rating.
- Infrastructure: This rating is for data centre owners and managers. It allows them to determine their facility’s energy efficiency in supplying the infrastructure services to the IT equipment housed in a data centre. This rating is suitable for co-location centres where the operators do not have control of any tenant IT equipment but provide the cooling and power delivery systems.
- Whole facility: This rating combines both the IT Equipment and Infrastructure tools and is designed for organisations that both manage and occupy their data centre or where internal metering arrangements do not permit a separate IT Equipment or Infrastructure rating.
Preparing for your rating
To prepare for your NABERS rating:
- Get ready: Source quotes from a few NABERS Accredited Assessors to understand the scope of work (site hours and consulting hours). Obtain internal approval from senior management. Top tip: To ensure buy-in, calculate the energy savings from increasing your star rating; it’s impressive!
- Gather your data: Collect 12 months of historical data on energy and details about the size and features of your building. Your Assessor will be able to guide you.
- Achieve NABERS Certification: Organise access for your assessor to conduct a site visit to validate your rating.
- Improve your rating: Your NABERS rating lasts for 12 months. Take action to reduce your energy during the next 12 months and enjoy the savings. Collect data to feed back into your next rating to track your performance.
For more information about preparing for a data centre rating, please see our NABERS for Data Centres fact sheet.
NABERS Waste Platform
Use the NABERS Waste Platform to upload and track your building’s waste data month-to-month. The platform automatically converts it into useful management insights. The different graphs on the platform represent key performance waste metrics that are designed to demonstrate how well a building separates its waste into streams that can be composted and recycled.
Find out about pricing for your sector, and the NABERS Waste tool.
Carbon Neutral certification
NABERS offers data centres a pathway to achieve Climate Active Carbon Neutral certification, a world-leading, government-backed certification that is aligned to national and international greenhouse gas accounting protocols. If your data centre has a NABERS Energy rating of 4 stars or above and uses carbon offsets to cancel the building’s emissions, you can achieve a Climate Active certification.
Find out more about our Climate Active Carbon Neutral certification.
* Calculated averages from the NABERS dataset as of Jan 2020. Based on a data centre in Sydney CBD with 19,947,837 kWh assessable IT energy and 9,182,651 kWh total energy. Metered heat rejection equals 100% and electricity percentage is 100%.