Schneider Electric wins ‘Outstanding Contribution to Sustainability and Efficiency’, and ‘Power Innovation of the year’ at DCS Awards 2022

Schneider Electric has won in two categories at the DCS Awards 2022. For the second consecutive year, Schneider Electric secured the DCS Award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Sustainability and Efficiency’, which recognises its leadership for the creation of the industry’s first comprehensive, novel framework for environmentally sustainable data centres.

During the event, Schneider Electric was also awarded ‘Data Centre Power Innovation of the Year’ for its Galaxy VL 3-phase uninterruptible power supply (UPS). The UPS offers world-leading energy efficiency, resilience, and sustainability, delivering up to 99-percent efficiency in its patented ECOnversion™ mode, without sacrificing load protection. The UPS also includes a pioneering ‘Live Swap’ safety feature, which delivers a touch-safe design throughout the process of adding or replacing the power modules while the UPS is online and fully operational.

“With growing global concerns surrounding climate change, coupled with the fallout of the international energy crisis, there has never been a more important time for our industry to prioritise sustainable action over words,” said Marc Garner, Vice President, Secure Power Division, Schneider Electric UK and Ireland. “As decarbonisation becomes embedded into every facet of the data centre sector, our mission is to be our customer’s partner for sustainability and efficiency, and help the industry accelerate its ambitions to reach Net Zero. I am extremely proud to accept these awards on behalf of Schneider Electric, which are testament to our ethos for sustainable innovation.”

Outstanding Contribution to Sustainability and Efficiency

The last two years have seen unprecedented demand for data centre capacity, propelled by the digital transformation efforts of the Covid-19 pandemic, increased connectivity requirements, and the growth of data centres globally. Analysts predict that data centres represent 1-2% of global electricity consumption, and emit the same level of carbon as the airline sector. Given this impact, sustainability has become an ever more prevalent topic and remains a key factor in customer decision-making.

At the DCS Awards 2022, Schneider Electric was awarded ‘Outstanding Contribution to Sustainability and Efficiency’ for creation of the industry’s first comprehensive novel framework for environmentally sustainable data centres. Available free to data centre stakeholders globally, the first-of-its-kind framework, detailed in Schneider Electric White Paper #67, ‘Guide to Environmental Sustainability Metrics for Data Centres’, allows for the detailed tracking and reporting of standardised, measurable sustainability metrics.

The framework directly helps owners and operators to address the key challenge of measuring sustainability and proposes five key metrics of environmental impact to measure and benchmark their progress against. They include Energy, GHG emissions, Water, Waste, Land and biodiversity, and provides 23 key metrics for standardised reporting. Further, it identifies the 17 most relevant

sustainability frameworks to guide operators in both setting measurable targets and reporting against them.

Created by a team of environmental, social and governance (ESG) experts, sustainability consultants, scientists and solution architects, it helps operators at the Beginning, Advanced or Leading stages of their sustainability journey to reduce their environmental impact.

Data Centre Power Innovation of the Year Schneider Electric was also awarded ‘Data Centre Power Innovation of the Year’ for its Galaxy VL 3-phase UPS, which offers world-leading energy efficiency, resilience, and sustainability. The UPS delivers up to 99-percent efficiency in its patented ECOnversion™ mode for a full return on investment via energy savings within two years.

Galaxy VL is one of Schneider Electric’s Green Premium™ products, offering sustainable performance by design. It includes transparent environmental information and makes minimal use of hazardous substances in compliance with regulations such as RoHS and REACH. Like all Schneider Electric Green Premium™ products, Galaxy VL includes full environmental disclosures, Product Environmental Profiles and Circularity Profiles, providing guidance on responsible end-of-life treatment and other recommendations to promote a circular economy.

Further, Galaxy VL offers ultra-reliable, secure power protection in a highly efficient and compact unit which, with a footprint of 0.8m2, occupies half the industry average space for an equivalent rated UPS. Its compact design, enhanced via use of Lithium-ion batteries, offers space savings of up to 70%, and delivers between 30% - 50% lower total cost of ownership compared to traditional VRLA batteries