ASHRAE wants some input on a proposed standard for data center and telecommunications buildings.

The standard, 90.4P, “Energy Standard for Data Centers and Telecommunications Buildings,” was created to reflect the unique issues of data centers, officials said. Previously, such operations were under the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers’ standard 90.1, which broadly covers most buildings.

The proposed standard offers more flexibility, said to committee chairman Ron Jarnagin.

“The explicit needs of data centers drive a fundamentally different approach to regulating minimum efficiency requirements for the electrical and mechanical systems that support the plug loads,” Jarnagin said. “By using an approach that requires compliance to a “system” level of performance, designers and end-users can utilize various trade-offs in their optimization strategies depending on their company specific business models.”      

The public is invited to make comments at www.ashrae.org/publicreviews until Dec. 30.