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Second Vantage Facility Earns LEED Platinum
The exterior of the’ V2 data center on the Vantage Data Centers campus in Santa Clara, Calif. (Photo: Vantage)

Second Vantage Facility Earns LEED Platinum

Vantage Data Centers said today that its V2 data center in Santa Clara, Calif. has earned a Platinum certification from the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program. Platinum is the highest level of the LEED rating system for energy efficient buildings.

The exterior of the' V2 data center on the Vantage Data Centers campus in Santa Clara, Calif. (Photo: Vantage)

Vantage Data Centers said today that its V2 data center in Santa Clara, Calif. has earned a Platinum certification from the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program. Platinum is the highest level of LEED, a voluntary rating system for energy efficient buildings.

V2 is the second of three data centers to be completed at the Vantage campus in Santa Clara. The first building, known as V3, also earned LEED Platinum status. This week's designation reaffirms Santa Clara's status as the LEEDiest" market in the data center business, serving as home to four of the 13 known Platinum data centers. In addition to the two Vantage facilities, Digital Realty operates two LEED Platinum data centers at its Santa Clara campus. See our feature on LEED Platinum Data Centers for the full list.

V2 is a two-story data center featuring a “penthouse” cooling system that uses the entire upper floor of the building as a plenum to process outside air for cooling servers. The facility was fully pre-leased to an undisclosed customer, which worked closely with Vantage to customize the design.

Highly Engineered Solution

“V2 is a highly efficient and highly engineered solution which meets the unique needs of our customer," said Jim Trout, Vantage Data Centers’ CEO. "It represents how Vantage is diverging further from an industry that has resisted innovation and that has forced tenants into ‘one size fits all’ products. What is also gratifying is that our customers share our passion for both operational excellence as well as continued commitment to minimizing their environmental footprint.”

Vantage says this holistic view of data center design, featuring close collaboration with tenants, represents the future of the wholesale data center market. "When you tightly align your design to the business case, you can do things that aren't possible when you're designing for a wider range of clients," said Greg Ness, the vice president of marketing for Vantage.

LEED and Data Centers

The LEED standard, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, sets guidelines that can reduce the impact of construction projects on the environment, and encourage sustainable building and design practices. Data centers initially had challenges meeting the requirements for LEED, but developers have adapted their design and building practices to earn LEED status, which is increasingly in demand from tenants.

"Given the extraordinary importance of climate protection and the central role of the building industry in that effort, Vantage Data Centers demonstrates their continued leadership through their LEED certification of V2,"  said Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO & Founding Chair, U.S. Green Building Council.

The USGBC is in the process of adapting LEED for New Construction and LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance to the particular needs of data centers to ensure that these facilities can successfully pursue and apply LEED. "By bringing data centers into the suite of LEED rating systems, we’re removing barriers so that even more data facilities can participate in LEED and build sustainably,"  Corey Enck wrote on the USGBC blog.

Today is the last day for the submission of comments on the draft of LEED for Data Centers.

For now, companies like Vantage see benefits in LEED designation for data centers under the existing standard. "LEED Platinum for us is the icing on the cake," said Ness. "It puts us among a small group of data centers and campuses worldwide with this designation."

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