Data centers - 'Apply Estimates' option (no meter)

Daycia, Since the current RG was written well before Energy Star came out with various revised guidelines, there are bound to be a some issues like this that will be popping up. My understanding is that Energy Star, with it's brand new data center benchmarking, will allow you to apply estimated energy for data centers only a) if the data center is less than 10% of the total building floor area, and b) up until June 2012. Informally, my understanding is that LEED will allow this as well. And everyone, get ready for June 2012 by getting those UPS Output or PDU Input installed!!

Daycia, as the editor for LEEDuser I can speak to question #2.It's important for us to note that LEEDuser is an independent resource, and USGBC and GBCI are the final authorities on the LEED standards and certification. LEEDuser provides advice, but GBCI gives the final word when it comes to certification.That said, LEEDuser was built with the expert guidance of a team of dozens of the top LEED experts in the world, many of whom have lots of experience doing LEED reviews, serving on LEED committees, and more. Our forum is filled with hundreds more people like this. There are a lot of gray areas and uncharted waters in LEED, and these folks have the insight and experience to be able to give good guidance on how things will go.We also closely monitor feedback from reviewers and LEED addenda, and watch how LEED Online forms are working, to stay up-to-date on how LEED is being officially interpreted.We often recommend that teams get a CIR on a specific issue to be certain of something, but on the other hand, we can often give fairly definitive answers, or suggest that it's not worth the money.Does this clarify things?

Daycia, if I were you I personally wouldn't bother with a CIR as in almost all cases USGBC/GBCI is pretty likely to align with the Energy Star guidance. You could use an customer service question with your assigned LEED reviewer if you've already registered and want something directly from GBCI guiding you on this. As far as I am aware, there would not be any different documentation requirements beyond what Energy Star requires as inputs related to your data centers.