We are planning to submit our office building for LEED O&M certification. Our 148,331 square foot building has a 531 square foot computer data center. The data center has a high energy use intensity, using approximately 154 watts per square foot, based on sub metering data collected over the last 12 months. The Energy Star Portfolio Manager program does not adequately account for the data center power use. Excluding the data center significantly reduces our Energy Star score across the building since the data center power density is not accurately represented by Portfolio Manager. The data center has a dedicated sub-meter to accurately capture and monitor the energy used. We would like to pull the data center out of the Energy Star Portfolio Manager scoring system. Energy Star will allow us to pull out the square footage of the data center and the total energy used by the data center for Energy Star Certification if we have 12 months of actual metering data and the data center area accounts for less than 10% of the total area. This facility meets both criteria. Please confirm that this approach to demonstrating compliance with LEED O&M EA Prerequisite 2 and Credit 1 is acceptable to USGBC.
The proposed approach to demonstrating compliance with LEED-EB O&M EA prerequisite 2 and EA credit 1 would be acceptable to USGBC. The exempted high intensity building area must account for less than 10% of the total building space. Secondly, the sub-metering should be a continual metering of the energy use for at least 12 months for the piece of the building of interest, in order to quantify the total energy consumption for the period of interest. The sub-meter does not need to be a utility-installed meter. ***Please note this CIR has been filed under LEED-EB O&M, under EAp2 and EAc1 - the guidance outlined above is intended for that rating system.*** Applicable Internationally.