Govt hopes subsidy will accelerate NABERS uptake

The NSW government is looking to boost uptake of the Federal government's efficiency rating by subsidising data centre case studies.

The National Australian Built Environment Rating System (NABERS) is a tool used by the Federal government to determine how environmentally friendly Australian buildings are.

Data centres in particular have been targeted with their own rating – NABERS energy for data centres – announced at the 2013 Australian Data Centre Summit.

Since then, the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) has trained 17 assessors to undertake NABERS data centre assessments.

In spite of this, just one data centre has received a NABERS Energy for Data Centre rating since its launch eight months ago.

In a statement to CRN, the OEH attributed the slow uptake to "quality assurance checks" and the compiling of "statistics about data equipment, metering and energy consumption over the previous 12 months".

To boost the adoption of energy-efficient data centre practices in NSW, the OEH has launched a 50 percent subsidy for data centres looking to qualify for a NABERS rating. The select data centres will undergo auditing and be used as case-study examples under the State's Energy Saver program.

Energy efficient business project officer at the OEH, Celine Petitfrere, said an energy audit could "take up to three months", but that there are "a couple of data centres who are interested already".

"We're trying to come up with case studies. We're looking for data centres to get energy audits combined with a NABERS rating. They will receive a 50 percent subsidy."

Data centres are highly energy intensive. According to research conducted in 2006 by the Office of Environment and Heritage, it is estimated data centres consume around 2 percent of energy globally and over 1.5% of energy in Australia. However, this figure may have grown to approximately 10 percent according to the 2009 report Data centre energy efficiency product profile.