Development of European Green Public Procurement Criteria for Data Centres - Preliminary report (JRC118550, EUR 29945 EN)

Overview

The report presents the first three tasks (product scope, market analysis, environmental and technical analysis) of a study carried out by the JRC with a consultant consortium led by Viegand Maagoe for the Commission's Directorate-General for the Environment; the fourth task is the draft criteria proposal. The aim is clear and ambitious GPP criteria based on a life-cycle approach and scientific evidence. The report has 13 chapters and includes stakeholder survey results. It reviews statistical classifications (Prodcom, NACE 63.11, CPV), legislation and standards (ecodesign, WEEE and RoHS, ETS, EN 50600, ISO/IEC 30134, ISO 14001 and 50001, ETSI GS OEU 001, ENERGY STAR, EU Code of Conduct, Blue Angel, EMAS, EURECA).

The scope proposal divides data centres into three types: enterprise, colocation and managed service provider (MSP). The proposed scope covers IT equipment (servers, storage, network), power conditioning (transformers, UPS) and white-space mechanical systems (CRAC/CRAH), and the system as a whole or a managed service; the building fabric is excluded. Market data puts about 96% of EU data centres in the enterprise segment, but only about 57% of white space (colocation 40%, MSP 3%); average white space is 60 m2 for enterprise, 1,152 m2 for colocation and 1,123 m2 for MSP. The enterprise count includes centres with at least 25 kW IT capacity and excludes server rooms.

The energy chapter puts EU data centre consumption at 55 TWh in 2010 and 74 TWh in 2015, rising on internal projections to 104 TWh in 2020 and 160 TWh in 2030, with annual growth slowing from 9% to 3%. Enterprise centres account for 62% of consumption in 2015 and 22% in 2030, while MSP centres rise from 26% to 62%. The IT share is assumed at 52% in 2010 and 67% in 2030, with a PUE of 1.5 used for 2030. The report says M&E improvement is more achievable and less disruptive to technology and resilience, while IT utilisation improvement (consolidation, virtualisation) is more complex but has high potential.

The LCA review covers ten studies; results are not fully comparable but hotspots are similar. One study attributes about 67% of global warming potential to the use stage and 33% to procured assets (production, transport, waste management), with the IT platform contributing about 67% of GWP and the facility (M&E and building) about 37%. The priority order is electricity mix, IT efficiency and utilisation, M&E consumption, equipment manufacture, and water discharged from cooling. Best practices such as virtualisation in enterprise data centres give about 15x reduction against the worst case and about 7x against the average. Because adiabatic cooling can raise water use, water is proposed for inclusion in the criteria.

The life cycle cost chapter gives separate structures for owners and customers: MSP customers pay no CAPEX but much higher OPEX, and colocation redundancy and resilience drive high CAPEX. According to BSRIA, building services installation CAPEX for data centres is about GBP 8,300/m2 (about EUR 9,400/m2), of which 62% is electrical installation and 17% space heating, cooling and air treatment. The report is an unfinished preliminary study: the number of data centre facilities could not be estimated directly at EU level, future projections remain uncertain and the criteria themselves were developed in later stages. It also notes that the perceived trade-off between reliability and sustainability can sustain poor legacy practice.

Key points

1. About 96% of EU data centres are enterprise but they hold only about 57% of white space; colocation holds about 40% and MSP about 3%.
2. Average white space is 60 m2 for enterprise, 1,152 m2 for colocation and 1,123 m2 for MSP; the enterprise count includes centres with at least 25 kW IT capacity.
3. EU data centre energy consumption is 55 TWh in 2010, 74 TWh in 2015, and projected at 104 TWh in 2020, 134 TWh in 2025 and 160 TWh in 2030.
4. Enterprise share of consumption falls from 62% in 2015 to 22% in 2030; MSP rises from 26% to 62% and colocation from 12% to 17%.
5. IT energy share is assumed at 52% in 2010, 57% in 2015 and 67% in 2030, with a PUE of 1.5 for 2030.
6. One reviewed LCA attributes about 67% of GWP to the use stage and 33% to procured assets; the IT platform accounts for about 67% and the facility 37%.
7. LCA priority order: electricity mix, IT efficiency and utilisation, M&E consumption, equipment manufacture, cooling water discharge.
8. Best practices in enterprise data centres, including virtualisation, can cut carbon footprint about 8-15 times.
9. Building services installation CAPEX (BSRIA) is about GBP 8,300/m2, 62% electrical and 17% heating, cooling and air treatment.
10. The temperature of cooled air supplied must be distinguished from the temperature of air entering IT equipment, which is 1 C to up to 20 C higher.

Using it in design

• Seed the embodied-versus-operational carbon module with the roughly one third procured assets and two thirds use-stage split as a default sanity check for LCA outputs.
• Use the EU white space split and average white space per segment (60, 1,152, 1,123 m2) as market defaults in templates.
• Define supply cooled air temperature and IT inlet air temperature as separate design variables in cooling design; the inlet is always higher (1 C to 20 C).
• Plan air management (hot/cold aisle separation and similar) as the first step; the report names it as normally the most cost-effective starting point for energy efficiency.
• When evaluating adiabatic cooling options, add water consumption and discharge to the evaluation output, because energy-efficient designs can raise water use.
• Keep this document as background for the GPP criteria checker (see eu-gpp-criteria-data-centres-swd-2020-55).

Who should read it

Engineers, public procurement specialists and policy analysts reviewing the market, energy and LCA evidence behind the EU GPP data centre criteria.

Document contents

1. Background
2. Review of existing scope, product types, product classification and metrics
3. Product classification in statistical sources (Prodcom, NACE, CPV)
4. Scope, categorisation and metrics in existing legislation, standards, voluntary agreements and procurement criteria
5. Definition of product and service scope
6. Data centre types
7. Proposed definition and scope
8. Procurement practices
9. Key actors in data centres value chain
10. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Data Centres
11. System-oriented analysis
12. Identification of priority improvement options for products and services
13. Data Centre energy consumption in the EU market
14. Data Centres market volumes
15. Technical state-of-play of data centres
16. Key performance indicators (KPIs) and overview of metrics
17. Life Cycle Costs structure of data centres
18. Main outcomes from stakeholders' survey in relation to proposed criteria

Related standards

• EN 50600-4
• ISO/IEC 30134
• ETSI ES 205 200
• ETSI GS OEU 001

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Publication details

Authors

Felice Alfieri; Nicholas Dodd; Miguel Gama-Caldas; Oliver Wolf; Larisa Maya-Drysdale; Baijia Huang; Jan Viegand; Sophia Flucker; Robert Tozer; Beth Whitehead

Publisher

European Commission JRC

Year

2019

Document number

EUR 29945 EN / JRC118550

Document language

English

Source type

Government / public

Access

Open licence — downloadable

DOI

10.2760/327087

Licence

CC BY 4.0 — share with attribution

Licence evidence

op.europa.eu

Citation