Best Practice Guide for Canadian Data Centres – Appendices

Appendix II

Canadian Data Centre Cooling and Power Density Preliminary Benchmarks

In 2021, the consensus among published sources and experts surveyed by the NRCan market assessment study indicated that IT equipment typically accounts for between 65% and 85% of total data centre electricity consumption, and cooling equipment accounts for between 15% and 25% of total data centre electricity consumption. The 2021 NRCan study also found that most Canadian data centres were air-cooled using either CRAC/CRAH perimeter cooling or close-coupled distributed cooling. The table below provides a summary of cooling system characteristics by data centre power density (PD) from 2021. This preliminary PD benchmark can be used by facilities to compare their own PD relative to other data centres operating in Canada.

Appendix III

EU Energy Efficiency Directive and Requirements for Data Centres

Data centre operators located in the EU, with an installed IT power demand of at least 500 kW must submit report to the European database by 15 September 2024. Reports will be submitted directly to the upcoming European database or to their national platform (if their country requires it).

EED Timeline for Data Centres in the EU:

• May 2024 – Publication of the delegated regulation. The delegated regulation sets up the reporting scheme, and lists the data points to be collected and associated KPIs. Moreover, the delegated regulation legally sets up the European database which will collect the information, and publish some of it at two levels of aggregation: EU level and country levels. The delegated regulation entered into force 20 days after its publication (6 June 2024).
• September 2024 – Reporting. By September 2024, then by May 2025 and every year thereafter, data centre operators will have to report to the European database the information and KPIs regarding the data centre they operate.
• Upcoming:
  • Transposition of the EED into national law. The EED must be transposed by Member States into their national legal systems, through the legal instruments of their choice. Upon transposing the EED, Member States may also change certain aspects of the reporting scheme, such as adding new data points, widening the scope of reporting entities, or setting up their own national reporting platform for instance.
  • Submitted data will be published in an aggregated manner at EU and Member States levels, and will be assessed in 2025. Following the assessment, the European Commission may propose further measures to improve the sustainable development of the industry, such as minimum performance standards, or a labelling scheme.

Implementation Support for Data Centres:

The European Commission published Task Reports (A,B,C) as part of the regulation framework to support implementation:

• Task A report – options for a reporting scheme for data centres (October 2023). The report provides an overview of data centres and outlines options for reporting requirements. The goal of this report is to provide a baseline understanding of current situation of data centres energy consumption.
• Task B report – Labelling and minimum performance standards schemes for data centres (December 2023). This report focuses on “development of energy efficiency measures” and best practices. The report identifies and evaluates protentional measures and technologies that can improve energy efficiency in data centres including recommendations for energy-saving technologies, design improvements, operational practices that can help reduce the energy footprint of data centres.
• Task C report – EU repository for the reporting obligation of data centres (December 2023). This report includes the “assessment and implementation strategies” for the proposed measures from TASK B report. It includes detailed guidelines and frameworks for implementing the reporting requirements (i.e., outline/template for input data on the platform that data centres will use).

Other resources:

• Data centre operators can implement IT efficiency tools like DCIM (Data Centre Infrastructure Monitoring) that monitor and optimize the performance of their IT equipment. DCIM can aggregate and report on PUE, total energy consumption with breakdowns by subsystems and even carbon emissions. Operators will be able to set baselines and start accumulating reports and will be able to use the reports to visualize inefficiencies, unnecessary power consumption and improve overall system efficiency. See Energy Efficiency Directive (europa.eu).

EED for Mixed Use Buildings:

EED reporting also applies to mixed-used buildings – reporting requirements applies only to data centre portion of the building. They are expected to follow reporting requirements by doing the following:

• Separate Metering and Allocation: Mixed-use buildings should ideally have separate metering for different functions or sectors within the building (e.g., residential, commercial, and data centre areas). Data centres, which are typically high energy users, should have their energy consumption tracked separately from other building uses.
• Integrated Reporting Systems: To facilitate compliance, many buildings adopt integrated energy management systems that allow for detailed and accurate reporting of energy consumption for different building functions (i.e., DCIM tool)

Exemptions:

KPIs on energy and sustainability:

• For the first reporting period, if a data centre operator cannot monitor and gather one or more of the key performance indicators set out in Appendix II , points 1(d), 1(e), 1(h)-(l), and 1(o)-(r), for technical reasons, the data centre operator may omit this information, and provide an explanation for the reasons for this omission.

KPIs on ICT capacity equipment:

• ICT capacity for servers/storage equipment shall be reported, as a minimum, for all new services/devices installed in the reporting data centre after the entry into force of this Delegated Regulation.
• §2: Similarly, as the first year, only equipment installed after the entry into force of the delegated regulation (Q2 2024, tbc) must be reported. Therefore, only the second half of the year 2024 is covered.
• ART. 3.2 DA: For the first two reporting periods, if a colocation data centre operator cannot monitor and gather the necessary data to sufficiently calculate the key performance indicators referred to in points 2(a) and 2(b) of Appendix II , it shall estimate and indicate the percentage of the data centre computer room floor area that the information communicated to the European database covers.

Colocation Data Centres:

• Reporting on ICT capacity and data traffic is especially difficult for colocation data centre operators, as they do not possess this information. For both of these categories, the Delegated Regulation provides that colocation operators may set up an anonymous internal reporting mechanism, to gather data from their customers.

References:

1. The EU Energy Efficiency Directive and its impact on CIOs, data centre owners and operators
2. Energy Efficiency Directive
3. Data centres in Europe – reporting scheme
4. Commission adopts EU-wide scheme for rating sustainability of data centres

Appendix IV

Data Centre Definition

The table below provides definitions of the term “data centre” from a range of authorities and research institutions. There is a general consensus in the literature regarding the purpose of data centres and related IT equipment. Additionally, several sources published since 2015 do not consider as data centres spaces that include IT equipment but were not designed or equipped primarily for data processing, storage, and communication, such as most server closets and server rooms within larger space types.