DC Tuas gets Green Mark Platinum, secures green loan

Singtel's Nxera gets Green Mark Platinum certification for DC Tuas, secures SG$643 million (US$475M) green loan to finance upcoming data centre.

On Friday, Singtel announced that it has secured a 5-year green loan from DBS, OCBC, Standard Chartered, HSBC, and UOB for the 58MW data centre.

Green loan

According to the press release, DC Tuas data centre will feature:

• Liquid cooling.
• Water recycling features.
• Support for >30kW per rack.
• PUE of below 1.25 at full load.
• "Highly efficient" chilled water system.

This is not Singtel's first green loan, which was taken in Dec 2023 with S$535 million to reduce the borrowings and support the operations of DC West and DC Kim Chuan data centres.

These are the two current data centres that Nxera will keep; another 5 Singtel data centres will be gradually shut down in the name of sustainability.

DC Tuas

When DC Tuas was first announced in 2023, I noted that the 58MW data centre will be the largest colocation facility in Singapore when completed.

At that time, Singtel mentioned 80kW per rack and a PUE of below 1.3 using liquid cooling. Clearly, the figures have been fine-tuned.

According to Singtel, DC Tuas will be operational in 2026.

Green Mark Platinum

As part of the green loan criteria, Singtel says DC Tuas has achieved the Green Mark for Data Centres (GMDC) Platinum certification. However, it's not clear if Singtel went with the older GMDC 2019 or the new GMDC 2024.

As announced last October, GMDC 2024 has been overhauled to emphasis new areas such as resilience and adopt a more streamlined approach to certification.

As I wrote then, GMDC 2024 imposes tighter requirements on PUE measurements, mandates measuring PUE at 25% IT load, and adds new requirements around energy metering and real-time PUE.

Data centre operators can opt for either one of the two standards until 1st March 2025. After this date, only GMDC 2024 will be available.

Read "Green Mark for Data Centres 2024 is Out" here.