Do you know how to reference ASHRAE 90.4?

ASHRAE Standard 90.4: Energy Standard for Data Centers was recently released; ASHRAE Standard 90.1: Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings is its normative reference. This creates a system of documents designed to eliminate overlaps and minimize confusion between the two standards.

In 2007, the idea of developing guidance on energy efficiency in data centers started to gain traction when the Report to Congress on Server and Data Center Efficiency was published. Before this, there was a core group of data center design engineers and information and communication technology professionals that were already researching and implementing energy efficiency strategies.

These efforts ultimately resulted ASHRAE publishing Standard 90.4-2016. Also, Standard 90.4 was completely new and written knowing the ITC equipment and data center design practices could be substantially different over the course of the development of the standard

While solid engineering approaches were being analyzed and implemented in data centers, the industry needed a performance-based document that ultimately could become part of an energy code. This is where the industry volunteers stepped up and used their expertise to develop parts of ASHRAE 90.4 in a relatively short timeframe and on complex and technical subject matter.

The heart of ASHRAE 90.4 defines an alternate compliance path, specific to data centers, while the compliance requirements for “non-data center” components are contained in ASHRAE 90.1

Instead of trying to weave in data center-specific language into the existing standard, ASHRAE wisely chose to create a (mostly) stand-alone standard that is only applicable to data centers and only contains references to ASHRAE 90.1. This structure also streamlines the ongoing maintenance process as well ensures that Standards 90.1 and 90.4 stay in their respective lanes to avoid any overlap and redundancies relating to the technical and administrative boundaries of the two standards.

Updates to ASHRAE 90.1 will still include the alternate compliance path defined in ASHRAE 90.4. Conversely the current version of 90.4-2022 refers to ASHRAE 90.1-2022, keeping both standards in sync.

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