Data Centers Need Green Roofs!

In a recent article in Business Week, titled "Going Green is Good for Your Wallet," the author wrote about two studies that indicate that buildings built to LEED specifications are commanding higher prices as well as higher resale.

While this is good news, particularly for flat green roofs, the article also relates that there are gaps. In particular:

Surprisingly, the actual EUI performance for LEED-certified, high-energy-use buildings, such as laboratories and data centers, was nearly two-and-a-half times higher than what was predicted during their design. ...Projects that were supposed to see energy savings of up to 40 percent actually “underperformed code by 60 percent.” “The NBI study provides a much-needed comparison of energy models to reality,” he says (Andrew McNamara, director of new construction services at Bright Power, a New York-based energy consultancy).

Relative to data centers, the leader in the "greening" of data centers is Aiso.net (Affordable Internet Services Online, Inc.). According to their site and what others have written about them, AISO is building a flat green roof for their data center.

The new green roof can reduce our cooling requirements by up to 50%. When finished, AISO will be the first and only public data center in North America with a green roof.

It would be quite a site to see all of the flat roof data centers, become flat green roofs! I bet the owners would also be happy with the reduced utility costs. Considering the competitive nature of data centers and hosting, this is a great opportunity to create a competitive advantage.

Here's to AISO.net for the commitment to flat green roofs and green building!