FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sabey Data Centers, one of the largest privately-owned data center owners, operators and developers in the United States, announced today that its SDC Quincy facility in Central Washington has earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2019 Energy Star certification with a score of 100 points for the campus’s Building C, the EPA’s highest possible green energy performance mark.
Rob Rockwood, 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.”
He added, “Our customers know that, beyond feeling good about being in a well-operated facility, this efficient operation directly benefits their bottom lines. It allows us to reduce our customers’ operating expenses by passing through the energy savings — and we do this in an area with the lowest electricity cost in the nation.”
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. An Energy Star efficiency performance rating of 100 is the highest level of power consumption efficiency, according to Energy Star.
SDC Quincy’s 135,000-square-foot Building C achieved a 100-point certification for 2019, having already won 100-point certification in 2015 and 2016 and a 99-point score for 2017, followed by a 100-point score in 2018. The campus’s Building A achieved a 100-point certification for 2017 and 99-point in 2018. According to Energy Star, a 100-point score for a building means, literally, it is more energy efficient than 100 percent of similar buildings.
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.
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 lends itself to evaporative cooling in order 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 95% of the year in Central Washington, the combination of nature and engineering can make mechanical cooling unnecessary, while still meeting ASHRAE TC9.9’s Recommended temperature range for IT equipment.
“Improving the energy efficiency of our nation’s buildings is critical to protecting our environment, “ said Jean Lupinacci, Chief of the Energy Star Commercial & Industrial Branch. “From the boiler room to the board room, organizations are leading the way by making their buildings more efficient and earning EPA’s Energy Star certification.”
Cris Engel, Director of Operations at Sabey Data Centers, said, “Scoring 100% is only done with a team mindset of operating very efficiently. This means every member looks at our spaces for areas to save energy. Most of this is represented in very tight containment and fine tuning the air handling unit (AHU) controls to use the least amount of fan energy. Our customer relationships allow us to have containment conversations when we find areas that need improvement.”
Electrical power in Grant and Douglas Counties in Central Washington is provided primarily from hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River. This source of power drives the lowest power rates in the United States. As of today, the average power rate in Quincy is $.03/kWh. Based on an annual use of at 1 MW, the annual cost of power at SDC Quincy is about $264,000, approximately 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 Centers is one of the 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 staff. Consistently recognized for low cost hydroelectric power, operational excellence through its world-class data centers and sustained uptime, Sabey is proud to provide data center services to many of the world’s top financial, technology and healthcare companies.
