EN 50600 — data centre facilities and infrastructures (overview and certification)

Overview

The EN 50600 series gives holistic requirements for planning, building and operating data centres, with emphasis on power supply, environmental control (cooling) and security. EN 50600-1 defines availability classes 1-4 and applies them separately to power, environmental control and cabling. Class 1 is a single path with no redundancy, Class 2 a single path with redundant components, Class 3 multiple paths allowing concurrent maintenance, and Class 4 fault tolerant. Protection classes 1-4 also exist for physical security and other hazards, and physical-security zoning is required.

Energy-efficiency enablement is defined through three granularity levels of measurement and monitoring. The main parts are -1 concepts, -2-1 building, -2-2 power distribution, -2-3 environmental control, -2-4 cabling, -2-5 security and -3-1 management and operations. The EN 50600-4 parts define KPIs aligned with ISO/IEC 30134: 4-2 PUE, 4-3 REF (renewable energy factor), 4-6 ERF, 4-7 CER, 4-8 CUE and 4-9 WUE. Giving a class per domain, rather than one Tier for the whole site, is what separates this series from Uptime's single-label approach.

The limit is that the source is a certification body's promotional page; the detailed class criteria sit in the standard itself and are relayed here through public summaries. Giving the class per domain makes a practical difference: a site can be Class 3 for power and Class 2 for cabling, a combination a single label cannot express. Measurement levels tie to KPI accuracy: level 1 needs the utility and UPS output, level 3 needs per-rack or IT-level metering.

Key points

1. Availability classes 1-4: Class 1 single path, no redundancy; Class 2 single path with redundant components; Class 3 multiple paths enabling concurrent maintenance; Class 4 fault tolerant
2. Availability classes apply separately to power supply/distribution, environmental control and telecom cabling
3. Protection classes 1-4 for unauthorised access and other hazards; physical-security zoning required
4. Energy-efficiency enablement is defined by three measurement/monitoring granularity levels
5. KPI parts: 4-2 PUE, 4-3 REF, 4-6 ERF, 4-7 CER, 4-8 CUE, 4-9 WUE; mirrored in the ISO/IEC 30134 series
6. Main parts: -1 concepts, -2-1 building, -2-2 power distribution, -2-3 environmental control, -2-4 cabling, -2-5 security, -3-1 management and operations

Using it in design

• In an 'EN 50600' standards profile, offer separate availability-class selectors for power, cooling and cabling (instead of a single Tier), plus a protection-class selector per room or zone
• In metering design, map granularity levels to meter points: level 1 = utility + UPS output; level 2 = + PDU outputs; level 3 = per-rack/IT
• In the KPI engine, name metrics per EN 50600-4-x / ISO 30134 (PUE category, REF, ERF, CER, CUE, WUE)

Who should read it

Designers working in the European market, owners seeking ISO/IEC 22237 alignment, and engineers building the metering and KPI architecture.

Related standards

• EN 50600-1
• EN 50600-2-2
• EN 50600-2-3
• EN 50600-4-2
• ISO/IEC 22237
• ISO/IEC 30134

Publication details

Authors

TÜV NORD

Publisher

TÜV NORD

Year

2026

Document language

English

Source type

Expert / community

Access

Free to read

Licence

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

Citation