techUK Data Centres Programme Review - January 2016

15 Feb 2016 02:26 PM

Review of January activity: a digest of topics covered, meetings, briefings and consultation responses.

During January we covered topics ranging from detailed regulatory procedures to long term industry strategy. These included compliance issues relating to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and our Climate Change Agreement (CCA) for data centres. We contributed to the European Commission’s ongoing discussion on developing Best Environmental Management Practices (BEMP) for data centres, where we identified a number of process issues; we wrote to officials in BIS and Treasury and we prepared input for industry discussions with the Committee on Climate Change on the energy impacts of the sector.

We alerted members to policy developments including those relating to GDPR, Safe Harbour, the Apprenticeship Levy, DECC’s consultation on supporting innovation to encourage growth and on the Commission’s Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) pilot (ENV-ETV@ec.europa.eu)

We sought member views on skills issues, on the evolution of the sector and its consequent energy impacts and on the effectiveness of the Energy Technologies List (ETL). On that note, we submitted our input to DECC’s call for evidence on the 29th. We took the position that the list was good in principle but was bureaucratic in operation and did not provide a big enough incentive to provide the necessary tipping point to incentivise major long term investments. Consequently it was under-used.

Meetings and workshops attended by members included a briefing on Blockchain on Tuesday 12th January and a roundtable on cloud outsourcing in financial services on Monday 25th January and two workshops on the Energy Technologies List organised by the Carbon Trust on 14th and 29th January. Also on 29th January members rolled up their sleeves in Manchester for a technical workshop with the Environment Agency regulators for both ETS and CCA to define a robust but pragmatic way to measure standby generator fuel consumption (harder than it sounds). A single approach was agreed for both schemes.

And while you weren’t looking.…

• We wrote to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills on the evolution of self-policing tools for the sector.
• We prepared a summary of policy priorities for European data centre operators.
• We started drafting our thought leadership paper on the evolution of the sector.
• We continued our negotiations with the Environment Agency in their capacity as Regulator for EU ETS (EU Emissions Trading Scheme) to mitigate penalties for low emitters.
• We continued discussions with European counterparts regarding issues of common concern and EU level representation.

What to look out for in February

• We have set up a Risk Radar briefing session on data related risks for operators on 23rd February.
• Our compliance decision tree to help data centre operators understand the regulations that apply to their emergency standby generators should be available.
• Our guidance note on measuring fuel use in generators should be ready.
• We should expect a response to our letter to BIS on self-policing.

Contacts

Further information and relevant documents available from emma.fryer@techuk.org

Or visit the website: http://www.techuk.org/focus/programmes/data-centres