Sustainability Benefits of Prefabricated Data Centers: Core and Shell Carbon Reduction

Overview

The paper concentrates on a narrow, measurable question: for the same electrical capacity, does an electrical room built on site or a set of prefabricated power modules made in a factory and shipped produce less carbon? The comparison covers only construction-phase (core and shell) embodied carbon; operating energy is outside the evaluation. Four emission sources are counted: above-ground site clearing, freight, on-site construction activity and materials.

The main result is that prefabricated power modules cut core-and-shell construction carbon by about 80% at deployment compared with a stick-built electrical room, which corresponds to an embodied-carbon multiplier of roughly 0.2 for the modular option. The paper also tests whether the advantage fades: even if module enclosures are replaced every 20 years, cumulative embodied carbon stays more than 50% lower after 60 years.

This shows that the modular route carries an end-of-life replacement burden, but that burden does not erase the saving at deployment. The limit is scope: only the electrical room is compared, so nothing is concluded for the whole building or for cooling infrastructure. The authors present prefabrication as a carbon-reduction lever; cost, schedule and operating-performance comparisons are not what this paper is about.

Key points

1. Prefabricated power modules cut core-and-shell construction carbon by about 80% at deployment.
2. With enclosures replaced every 20 years, cumulative embodied carbon stays more than 50% lower after 60 years.
3. Four emission sources: above-ground site clearing, freight, on-site construction and materials.
4. The comparison is a stick-built electrical room against equivalent prefabricated power modules.
5. Scope is construction-phase embodied carbon only.

Using it in design

• Add a construction-method option for electrical rooms: stick-built or prefabricated module.
• Use an embodied-carbon multiplier of about 0.2 for the prefabricated option at deployment.
• Default the enclosure service life to 20 years and include replacement within a 60-year horizon in lifecycle carbon calculations.
• Show the cumulative curves of the two methods side by side in the carbon report.

Who should read it

Project managers choosing an electrical-room construction method and sustainability engineers computing embodied carbon.

Related standards

• EN 15978
• ISO 21930

Publication details

Authors

Suraj Manohar Desai; Mahesha Munanjanappa; Wendy Torell; Ray Lizotte

Publisher

Schneider Electric

Year

2026

Document number

WP 240

Document language

English

Source type

Manufacturer

Access

Free to read

Licence

Copyright retained; citation only — the publisher’s terms apply to the original document

Citation