The requirements of air quality legislative instruments such as IED are presenting challenges to data centre operators. While it is widely recognised that these regulations are a poor fit for emergency standby power, we must be cognisant that large genset arrays have potential to impact local air quality in the short term, whether used for testing or in emergency. We are pushing back on requirements that add cost but deliver no policy outcome, but we need to find meaningful alternative solutions and we also need to add clarity and certainty to a hopelessly confused and contradictory landscape. Picking a way through this complex minefield is proving tricky: most recently we have challenged the Environment Agency’s adoption of 2G TA Luft as an inappropriate standard against which to set their requirements. We have also challenged what operators perceive as intransigent and inconsistent implementation and their failure to formalise or publish any guidance or detailed requirements. From their perspective they are frustrated by our unwillingness to adopt the measures they think are necessary to minimise potential risks to public health and they feel that the rules should change now that we are largely through with retrospective permitting.
So this meeting has three purposes:
- we have generator supply representatives and the EA in the same room as operators so we can start the process of bottoming out a suitable emissions level requirement looking forward.
- We need to re-set the timetable against which operators must work to meet IED requirements
- We need to start off the development of an Industry Code of Practice (ICOP), break the process into bite sized chunks and allocate tasks.
Luisa C. Cardani
Luisa C. Cardani
Luisa C. Cardani is the Head of the Data Centres Programme at techUK, aiming to provide a collective voice for UK operators and working with government to improve business environment for the data centres sector.
Prior to joining techUK, Luisa worked in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport as the Head of International Data Protection, where she led on the development of elements of the UK's data protection and privacy policy. In her role, she was also the UK official representative for the EOCD Privacy Guidelines Informal Advisory Group.
She has held a number of position in government, including leading on cross-cutting data provisions in the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, and in high priority cross-departmental projects when working in the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
She holds an M.Sc. from University College London's Department of Political Sciences.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- Phone:
- 07587 210 799
- Website:
- www.techUK.org
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/luisacardani
Lucas Banach
Lucas Banach
Lucas Banach is Programme Assistant at techUK, he works on a range of programmes including Data Centres; Climate, Environment & Sustainability; Market Access and Smart Infrastructure and Systems.
Before that Lucas who joined in 2008, held various roles in our organisation, which included his role as Office Executive, Groups and Concept Viability Administrator, and most recently he worked as Programme Executive for Public Sector. He has a postgraduate degree in International Relations from the Andrzej Frycz-Modrzewski Cracow University.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- Phone:
- 020 7331 2006
- Twitter:
- @techUK
- Website:
- www.techuk.org
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucas-banach-50139650
