Government Agencies are being supported in their move towards net zero with the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) establishing a new Data Centre Panel to help promote sustainable practices across the data centre market.
General Manager for Digital Investment Advice and Sourcing at DTA, Wayne Poels said the new Panel, replacing the previous panel established in 2014, included a strengthened range of measures for data centre providers to identify, manage and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
“This an important step in sustainable ICT procurement across Government,” Mr Poels said.
“As Government expands its use of data centres to support the rapid digital transformation of our services and systems, these measures will ensure that providers are supporting our commitment to achieving ‘net zero’,” he said.
“This is also a strong signal to the data centre market that government expects to see further investment and innovation to help drive Australia’s response to climate change.”
Mr Poels said the technical requirements for the new panel included sustainable design considerations, covering the use of robotics, automation and smart sensors for facility monitoring, as well as innovative approaches to managing temperature controls in the data centre facilities available under the panel.
He said the DTA had mandatory reporting requirements in place to ensure the data centre providers were addressing the sustainability measures, including environment ratings, power consumption and what percentage of the power consumed came from a renewable power source.
“This isn’t a ‘set and forget’ measure for the DTA,” the General Manager said.
“We will continue to monitor progress and work closely with buyers and sellers over the panel term to encourage significant progress towards ‘net zero’ in this space.”
He said that for the first time, the Data Centre Panel would be integrated into BuyICT.gov.au – the DTA’s online platform to streamline the ICT procurement process.
“This means that it will be quicker and easier for data centre providers to tender for Government business, with easy-to-follow online procurement workflows for Government buyers to use when approaching the market,” Mr Poels said.
