Citigroup Plans LEED Gold Data Center

Citigroup will spend $232 million build a new energy-efficient data center in Frankfurt, Germany, according to media reports. The company said it intends to achieve Gold-level certification under the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program administered by the U.S. Green Buildings Council. LEED is the national benchmark for the design and construction, and operation of high performance green buildings. A small number of data centers have achieved LEED certification, and several developers have announced new projects designed to be LEED-certified.

The Frankfurt project continues a global data center expansion for Citigroup, which includes a $450 million data center project in Austin, Texas. Citigroup estimates that the Frankfurt facility will save 11,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, and cut energy use at the site by 75 percent. The new facility is part of a broader environmental initiative by Citigroup which includes a pledge to fund $50 billion in climate projects in the next 10 years.

Energy use in data centers has attracted the attention of government bodies in Europe as well as the United States, where the EPA recently issued recommendations on improving energy efficiency. The European Union is developing energy efficiency guidelines for data centers. Reports and presentations from that process are available online (link via BladeWatch).