Atlanta, Georgia: ASHRAE has announced that it is seeking industry inputs for the fourth public review of its proposed data centre standard. The standard, the announcement added, is open for comment until May 29, 2016.

ASHRAE Standard 90.4P, Energy Standard for Data Centers would establish the minimum energy efficiency requirements of data centres for design and construction, for creation of a plan for operation and maintenance and for utilisation of on-site or off-site renewable energy resources, ASHRAE informed.

ASHRAE listed the following changes made as a result to the draft standard:

• Revised the definition of incoming electrical service point
• Deleted exception 2 to 4.2.1.2, additions to existing data centres
• Corrected equations in 6.2.1.1 and 6.2.1.2. to correctly express peak power in all cases
• Deleted 3B Coast from Tables 6.2.1.1 and 6.2.1.2. to ensure alignment with ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 169-2013, Climatic Data for Building Design Standards
• Added section that describes the process for establishing verification of equipment efficiencies to Section 6 and 8.
• Corrected equations in Compliance Section 11.2.1.
• Revised Section 11.3, to indicate how compliance can be demonstrated through modelling of shared systems between ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-2013, Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings,and 90.4 spaces
• Updated references in Section 12 for Standard 90.1 and ASHRAE’s ‘Thermal Guidelines for Data Processing Environments’.

“This standard impacts a specialised discipline, so feedback from that industry is critical,” said Ron Jarnagin, 90.4P Committee Chair. “The data centre industry responded to the three public reviews thus far, with more than 1,000 comments, which have guided us as we move toward publication. We are hopeful we will approve a final standard at the ASHRAE 2016 Annual Conference taking place this summer.”