SDC Quincy facility receives federal EPA ENERGY STAR® certification for superior energy efficiency with the highest possible green score
SEATTLE, Wash. – Sabey Data Centers, the largest privately-owned data center owner, operator and developer on the West Coast , announced today that its SDC Quincy facility in Central Washington has earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2015 ENERGY STAR certification with a score of 100 points, the EPA’s highest possible green energy performance mark.
John Sabey, President of Sabey Data Centers, said, “This certification confirms Sabey’s leadership role in energy-saving, efficient data center design, construction and operation. We are committed to building the best facilities for our customers’ IT requirements and for the environment.”
Broadly stated, the Energy Star certification signifies that an industrial facility performs in the top 25 percent of similar facilities nationwide for energy efficiency and meets strict energy efficiency performance levels set by the EPA.
SDC Quincy sets a higher standard. The facility’s Energy Star efficiency performance rating of 100 is the highest level of power consumption efficiency and represents twice the national average for data centers. SDC Quincy’s energy intensity, or the amount of energy the data center consumes, is 33% below the national average, according to the EPA’s Statement of Energy Performance for the facility.
“SDC Quincy is a great example of how engineers and builders can partner with owners early in the development of a project to make smart decisions about the design that affect the long-term performance of the facility,” said Dean Allen, CEO of McKinstry, a nationally recognized construction, energy and facility services firm responsible for the design and construction of the data center’s mechanical systems.
On average, 87% of all the energy used at SDC Quincy directly powers its computing operations. Apart from IT load, cooling is the largest driver of electrical power in data centers. The dry ambient air in Central Washington offers an additional technique, evaporative cooling, to achieve cooling efficiency. As a result, mechanical costs are lowered by as much as 70%, dramatically increasing the number of free cooling hours. For more than 90% of the year in Central Washington, the combination of nature and engineering can make mechanical cooling unnecessary.
McKinstry performed a systems analysis early in the project development that determined an energy efficient system could be deployed without sacrificing reliability. The mechanical system is designed to scale to multiple Tier levels and respond to the needs of different clients. In order to ensure that the facility would perform at peak efficiency, Mobile Commissioning Assistants — data center environment simulators jointly created by McKinstry and Sabey — were used during the commissioning process to verify the design performance.
Mr. Sabey added, “During the EPA’s measurement period, we started up three data center modules at SDC Quincy that are not yet operating at their peak efficiency. We expect to run the facility even more efficiently next year, as our customers add load.
“Energy efficiency can also be cost effective,” he said. “It allows us to offer competitive rates to our customers by passing through the energy savings, and we do this in an area with the lowest electricity cost in the nation.”
Earlier this year, Sabey Data Centers announced that it has commenced construction of a second data center building as part of the company’s master plan for the 40-acre SDC Quincy campus. The new, 135,280-square-foot facility, known as “Building A,” will adjoin the similarly sized “Building C,” which is now almost fully leased. The SDC Quincy master plan also calls for a third building to complete a total of 405,000 square feet of data center space.
Electrical power in Grant and Douglas Counties in Central Washington is provided primarily from hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River. It is the world’s cleanest and renewable energy source, offered at the lowest power rates in the United States. As of today, the average power rate in Quincy is $.0265/kWh. Based on an annual use of at 1 MW, the annual cost of power at SDC Quincy is about $264,114, about one quarter the cost for the same amount of power in San Francisco.
About Sabey Data Centers
With a portfolio of more than three million square feet of mission critical space, Sabey Data Center Properties is one of the oldest and largest privately owned multi-tenant data center owner/developer/ operators in the United States. Sabey specializes in scalable, custom-built solutions including data center ready shell space and fully turnkey data centers managed by Sabey’s award-winning critical environment operations team. Consistently recognized for its reputation for operational excellence through its world-class data centers and sustained uptime, Sabey boasts one of the most sterling tenant rosters in the industry. sabeydatacenters.com
About McKinstry
McKinstry is a full-service, design-build-operate-and-maintain (DBOM) firm specializing in consulting, construction, and energy and facility services. The firm’s innovative, integrated delivery methodology provides clients with a single point of accountability that drives waste and redundancy out of the design/build process. With over 1,700 professional staff and trades people throughout the United States and operations in more than 20 states, McKinstry advocates collaborative, sustainable solutions designed to ensure occupant comfort, improve systems efficiency, reduce facility operational costs and optimize profitability “For The Life of Your Building.” For more information, visit mckinstry.com.
About ENERGY STAR
ENERGY STAR was introduced by EPA in 1992 as a voluntary, market-based partnership to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency. Today, the ENERGY STAR label can be found on more than 65 different kinds of products, 1.4 million new homes, and 20,000 commercial buildings and industrial plants that meet strict energy-efficiency specifications set by the EPA. Over the past twenty years, American families and businesses have saved more than $230 billion on utility bills and prevented more than 1.8 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions with help from ENERGY STAR.
