Government claims standard will reduce IT energy consumption by 30 percent
The Singaporean government has launched a new standard to support data center operators.
Announced last week, the standard - SS 715:2025: Energy Efficiency of Data Centre IT Equipment - aims to save energy consumption of IT equipment in data centers by at least 30 percent.
The standard will also aid data center users in choosing IT equipment that meets international energy efficiency baselines and adopt best practices in IT energy management, such as workload consolidation and virtualization, to increase IT equipment utilization. The aim is to increase compute workloads with the same or less energy.
It additionally specifies that IT equipment should be able to operate safely at temperatures up to 35°C (95°F). The government said that operators who also adopt Singapore’s Tropical Data Centre standard (SS697:2023) to operate at higher temperatures can potentially benefit from a further 2-5 percent energy saving on the cooling systems with every 1°C (1.8°F) increase in operating temperature.
The government said it was one of the first in the world to introduce data center standards for IT energy efficiency in the tropics.
Aileen Chia, deputy chief executive of Singapore's Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), said: “Data centers provide a critical foundation for Singapore's digital economy, enabling innovation and growth. This new IT EE standard builds on the progress made following the launch of the Green Data Centre Roadmap, and the Tropical Data Centre standard to accelerate both facility and IT energy efficiency in data centers. We will continue to work closely with industry to advance sustainable green data center growth in Singapore.”
Data center end-users can tap on IMDA’s Energy Efficiency Grant for the data center sector to support the upgrade of their IT equipment to meet the energy efficiency baselines defined in the new standard. The grant co-funds data center end-users’ purchase of pre-approved energy-efficient IT equipment.
The SS 715:2025 standard, which was co-developed with industry experts and academia, is available for purchase here.
