LEED Gold for Digital Realty Santa Clara Site

Digital Realty Trust (DLR) has earned a LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) for its 1500 Space Park facility in Santa Clara, Calif., the company said Monday. In 2007 Digital Realty became the first developer to earn a Gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for a data center back for a Chicago facility.

Digital Realty did not identify the tenant in the LEED Gold facility. But it appears to be Yahoo (YHOO), which said that it had signed a lease with Digital Realty for a Turn-Key data center that was on track for Gold LEED certification. The Santa Clara facility was certified using the LEED for Commercial Interior (LEED-CI) program.

"The LEED-CI certification for 1500 Space Park recognizes our holistic approach to making efficiency and sustainability key factors in the way we design, build and operate our facilities," said Jim Smith, CTO of Digital Realty Trust. ""We use LEED guidelines as a best practice for our entire portfolio of datacenters, and have 10 additional datacenter projects currently in the LEED certification process, a sign of our commitment to energy efficiency and environmental sustainability."

A key element in the LEED certification is 1500 Space Park's use of airside economization, which reduces HVAC energy costs by utilizing cool external air as a complement to internal air cooling technologies while maintaining indoor air quality.

"Northern California has a climate that makes airside economization an important tool for increasing energy efficiency in datacenters, making it a natural fit for 1500 Space Park," said Smith. "In addition to 1500 Space Park, we are utilizing airside economization at one of our other facilities in the area. We plan to continue using it in Silicon Valley and other markets where we can take advantage of the climate to increase efficiency and reduce our customers' energy costs while supporting their green IT initiatives."

"Companies often undertake a datacenter project without considering how to make the datacenter efficient from both a financial and an environmental perspective," said Chris Crosby, Senior Vice President of Digital Realty Trust. "Designing facilities to LEED standards helps companies recognize that the design and construction of a datacenter is essential to reducing both capital and ongoing operational costs."

The 1500 Space Park Drive building was initally developed by Pelio & Associates. Digital Realty Trust acquired a 50 percent interest in the project in 2007 and later boughtt he project outright.