The rapid digitisation of society is driving remarkable growth in the data centre sector.
Data centre IT power capacity in the UK is projected to more than double by 2030, rising from around 2.9GW in 2024 to 6.2GW. Over the same period, data centres are expected to represent 8.8% of electricity demand, up from 2.5%.
Mohammad Royapoor
These figures demonstrate the urgency of developing a new era of resilient and sustainable data centres, and building services engineers will be tasked with designing the infrastructure to power this new industrial revolution. Highlighting the stakes, Mohammad Royapoor, head of R&D, RED Engineering, says the next wave of data centres ‘are expected to bring the golden age of humanity’.
To meet this challenge, CIBSE’s Data Centre Special Interest Group (DCSIG) is working to bridge critical gaps in what Iain MacDougall, head of sustainability at RED Engineering, calls a ‘relatively unregulated area’.
Iain MacDougall
Austin Williamson, technical director at Foreman Roberts and chair of the CIBSE DCSIG, adds: ‘Data centres are some of the biggest buildings in terms of load and size; it’s on an industrial scale. We need to evaluate everything, from cooling and distribution to water usage and power usage, and it’s got to be looked at from an ethical perspective. I’m not saying that what we’re doing now is wrong, but it needs to evolve.’
The group identifies three massive sector challenges: regulation and technical guidance; recruitment; and speed of change. The technical demands are evolving rapidly, particularly with the rise of AI.
Malcolm Wallace
‘There is a massive gender issue in the sector, where females are significantly underrepresented at only 8% of the workforce. There is a critical need for inclusivity; data centres rely on teamwork and collaboration, its key we bring a wider range of voices into these conversations,’ says Shabna Hayes, regional director, Aecom.
Modern data centres will require a complete rethink of traditional engineering
Modern data centres will require a complete rethink of traditional engineering. ‘The power systems, for example, are going to have to be designed differently to handle these types of loads,’ says Williamson. ‘We can’t keep working to the current models, with the amount of energy use – the embodied energy of the systems required would be off the charts.’
Sustainability and ethics are central to the DCSIG’s mission. ‘We have to have faith that what we’re building is going to be incredibly useful and powerful for humanity,’ says Royapoor.
Austin Williamson
The SIG is gaining momentum with specific workstreams, including a dedicated group for commissioning – a process that it aims to standardise where no such standard currently exists. Its other workstreams are: heat recovery; TM65 (embodied carbon); power systems; zero generation strategies; CFD; liquid cooling; and commissioning.
‘The data centre sector is small, with a limited pool of consultants, operators, and suppliers who often collaborate. The formation of the CIBSE Data Centre Group attracted attention across the entire sector’, MacDougall says. As co‑chair of the ASHRAE DC SIG, MacDougall has helped to create strong alignment between the two organisations. ‘This shared involvement is already opening the door to peer reviews, knowledge exchange, and broader collaboration between CIBSE and ASHRAE,’ he says.
Shabna Hayes
A further Data Centre Lighting group is being planned via the Society of Light and Lighting (SLL), while the CIBSE MENA Data Centre Group and SLL UK are setting up a working group with help from Neethu Susan George, Trilux and the DCSIG via SLL
Data centre workstreams
Members of the CIBSE Data Centre Special Interest Group are developing guides in seven critical areas of database design:
Heat recovery
Lead Iain MacDougall
Heat export from data centres (DC) is one of the largest untapped energy sources (heat) in the UK. However, the current regulatory and technical frameworks in the UK do not assist in realising the energy source.
Guidance is needed so multiple DC operators and district heating operators can align to a common approach and standardised solutions, which can help create efficiency and effective low carbon heating.
This initiative is a data-centric package of work to establish much-needed benchmarks. As Royapoor explains, the goal is to ‘aggregate vast amounts of data, tabulate them, visualise them, and say this is what a good data centre would look like and what best practice looks like.’ A key priority is ensuring the guidance is ‘location specific’, as Royapoor notes that ‘a data centre in Singapore is very different from the one in Frankfurt’. The SIG plans to start with Britain, to focus on UK-specific heat-rejection technology. While learning from a previous logistical TM65, ‘this will be a very different product altogether, because a logistics centre is just an empty shell… a data centre is an entire machine’, Royapoor says. The ambition is to have a working draft by the end of this year.TM65 for data centres
Lead Mohammad Royapoor
The group is developing a specialised TM65 for data centres, to provide a standardised methodology for calculating the embodied carbon of MEP equipment in data centres when Environmental Product Declarations are unavailable.
Until now, designs relied on resilient Uptime Institute tier classifications and distribution topologies, but these must now evolve to follow system loads more effectively across various operational scenarios. Future infrastructure must align with increased power densities without compromising the resilience of critical cooling and power systems. This must include evaluating embodied energy of the systems, designing to optimum of power network performance and distribution, and maintaining resilience to control system level and to chip level. Because AI and LLM loads are often extremely dynamic compared with earlier steady-state IT loads, power systems are going to have to be designed differently to handle these. The group’s research will consider developing design philosophies that embrace network criticality and evaluate the embodied energy of the systems. Ultimately, CIBSE aims to develop guidance notes and white papers linked to education and research and development, to support the next generation of data centre professionals.Power systems
Lead Austin Williamson
Power systems design is undergoing a fundamental shift as engineers move beyond traditional, steady-state models to address the dynamic demands of AI and large language models (LLMs).
There is, therefore, a need for best practice and guidance, to provide a technical memorandum to ensure designs are adopting innovation and technology while maintaining a consistent design strategy towards sustainability and environmental challenges. ‘It would be really great to get more support from those with electrical knowledge,’ Hayes urges.Zero-generation strategies
Lead Shabna Hayes
Generators have been a critical part of the electrical infrastructure supplying data centres, ensuring resilience, stability and business continuity. Environment regulators, operational limitations and initiatives for greater sustainability are putting more pressure on clients to clean up their infrastructure. The drive for carbon-neutral initiatives has led to a push for alternative cleaner power supplies, and to eliminate a reliance on fossil fuels.
In the absence of robust CFD analysis, the design is often overengineered, which leads to capital expenditure and embodied carbon penalties. The densification of DCs resulting from AI and high-density compute, as well as rising climatic temperatures, make CFD a key solution.CFD
Lead Mohammad Royapoor
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD)is a critical tool for visualising the behaviour of air (or a liquid) through a space before building the facility. It can predict and resolve problems such as the removal of hot spots in data halls and entrainment with external heat-rejection assets. Space planning and building form optimisation can also be supported by CFD.
Most current designs rely on manufacturer-led consultations. CIBSE is addressing this by developing a technical memorandum to provide a holistic, product-agnostic approach. This guidance will allow designers to create scalable, flexible solutions that are adoptable across various rack densities, without manufacturer bias or risk of future compliance failure.Liquid cooling
Lead Mohammad Royapoor
Historically, data centres have adopted air-cooled solutions. However, a move to liquid cooling is being driven by a combination of factors, such as high-density AI machinery, space optimisation, easier heat reuse, and better efficiency at the compute and data-hall levels.
The group comprises eight members, and we hope to have the structure and bones of the document ready in spring 2026. Then the serious authoring process begins as we discuss, develop and review every work stage, activity and tableCommissioning
Lead Malcolm Wallace
The goal of this working group is to write a definitive standard for the commissioning of data centres, which can be used to help standardise procurement of DC commissioning and define the scope of the specialist commissioning agent. It will include a full workflow, from concept through construction to operation, with a detailed description of every activity along the way. The intention is that this can be easily scaled to all project sizes, highlight where strategic decisions must be made, and identify a list of add-on and value-add options.
Call to action
As the sector continues its rapid ascent, the Data Centre SIG’s ‘call to action’ is clear: the industry must collaborate now to ensure the digital backbone of the future is resilient and responsible. The group’s committee is looking for authors who are willing to volunteer their efforts and use their knowledge and experience to write publications.
Visit bit.ly/CIBSEdcgroup to join.
[/well]
