GovDC Silverwater receives first 4.5 star NABERS rating

The NSW Government’s GovDC Silverwater facility has received the first 4.5 star NABERS energy-efficiency rating for an Australian data centre.

The Silverwater facility uses an energy-efficient free air cooling system design that allowed it to achieve a 4.5 star rating even during a measurement period that included fairly low levels of utilisation.

NABERS (the National Australian Built Environmental Rating System) measures the environmental performance of Australian buildings, including energy efficiency, water usage, waste management and indoor environment quality. It is managed by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage.

The NSW Government Resource Efficiency Policy, announced in July 2014, calls for all existing government data centres to be rated at a minimum of 4.5 stars by June 2017. Facilities failing to make the grade will need to move their equipment to GovDC.

Under the GovDC project, the NSW Government aims to consolidate 130 of its existing data centres into two core facilities, in Silverwater and in Illawarra. They are being constructed by Metronode under a 10-year contract. The government has the ambition of achieving a 5-star NABERS rating.

The terms of the project call for all major NSW Government agencies to have started migrating their data centre assets to one of the two facilities by August 2017.