by Keith Johns on July 14, 2010
On June 7, 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) announced an addition to its Energy Star rating system – this one for data centers.
For several years now, USEPA has been promoting the Energy Star label for equipment and buildings that demonstrate high energy efficiency. Data centers have long been enormous hogs of power, and this new rating should provide some additional punch to the movement to reduce that power demand.
USEPA has estimated that data centers nationwide could be using 100 billion kWh in 2011. That’s about 2.5% of the entire electricity usage in the United States and is estimated to cost $7.4 billion each year. Make these 25% more efficient (saving $18,500,000,000), and you have enough to fund NASA. Or I suppose you could build eight nuclear power plants dedicated to running data centers.
The upshot is that tremendous efficiency advances have taken place in designing and building data centers – which require significant cooling – as well as in the technology housed in those centers. For example, an Energy Star label for servers was unveiled in 2009. At the same time, demand for computing power is continuing to increase. Balancing these factors, and the cold reality of cash flow, is a challenge to all IT departments.
There are so many reasons to work on energy efficiency in buildings and equipment. Higher energy costs mean less money for other operations. In Alabama, as in all hot climates, the demand for electricity is significantly higher in the summer months. Data centers, which require uninterrupted power, have to compete with air conditioning systems for that electricity. Energy costs will continue to increase as demand grows internationally, fuel becomes more costly and new power plants must be paid for.
A few tips for managing or upgrading an existing data center or computing system:
- Whenever possible, purchase equipment that meets EPEAT standards. These are energy efficiency ratings for computers that typically exceed Energy Star ratings, compiled by a credible non-profit organization. Multiple U.S. government agencies, as well as other governments and corporations, require EPEAT standards for IT equipment purchases.
- Evaluate your usage and ensure your energy management plan is optimal.
- Research local power market rates. It may be cost-effective to run certain processes in different hours, when the electricity rates are a fraction of their daytime rate. This does not conserve electricity, but does help spread demand.
- Install motion sensors and other automatic controls for managing the non-computing energy load, such as lighting – which also generate heat.
- Enable power management features on all remote consoles. “Off” always uses less power than “On.
Details on USEPA’s data center program can be found here.
This article was originally written by Keith Johns of Resolutions LLC for Technology Alabama Magazine.
by Shawn Wright on June 30, 2010
Sustainability and going green can be such a huge ordeal depending on your level of commitment and your business. We preach every day that it is not a short-term solution but one that takes time. It is also built on many different ideas and programs. I love looking closely to see what businesses are doing and how they are implementing things.
I was at my local Publix supermarket the other night and I made it to the back corner of the store where they had relegated all the organic food. The light was out on the organic cooler. I figured no one was watching it so the light could have just burned out but when I got close the light came on. I looked closer and I noticed there was a motion sensor on the top of the cooler. What an ingenious idea.
As I mentioned this is not the most visited section of the store so there is no need for lights to be on all the time. For a company that uses a lot of energy on lights and cooling they are probably looking at whatever ways they can save money.
Yes this is a simple solution and in the big picture it may not make a lot of sense but once you start adding them up the savings begin affecting the bottom-line.
My favorite story is where a Walmart employee suggested they take out the lights on the soda machines at their stores. To one store it may not make a huge difference but the company saved over a million dollars that year.
Take a look at your company and see if you can do anything different. Encourage your employees to suggest ideas, no idea is too small. Once you string some together the savings become obvious.
by Shawn Wright on June 4, 2010
British Petroleum is an oil company that has originally founded in 1909 as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. In 1954 it became known as the British Petroleum Company. In 2001 British Petroleum rebranded themselves as BP and adopted the tagline “Beyond Petroleum”. They would no longer be an oil company but an “energy” company. A new logo was adopted that looks like a flower or a sun, both very green icons.
Along with this rebranding, BP became a leader in the sustainability movement, publishing CSR reports and touting all the good things they have done. BP became the greenest of the oil, I mean energy, producers in the eyes of the public. But as they washed themselves with this green color things were happening behind the curtain. It all became exposed on April 20, 2010
On April 20 the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, a semi-submersible exploratory offshore drilling rig located south of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico, exploded and sank two days later. The oil spill is already the largest in the world and there is no sign of the spill ending. This threatens not only sea life but the livelihood of fishermen and other businesses up and down the gulf coast. It is predicted that oil will enter the currents and eventually make its way up the east coast and towards Europe.
I could go on and on about the spill but there are many other people reporting on this so I will leave it to them. What I want to focus on is BP and their greenwashing.
In fairness, some of what BP did as far as sustainability goes was good but it didn’t reach into every part of their business and once the oil spill happened, everyone started looking for the skeletons in the closet. A few of them are:
2005 Texas City Refinery Explosion
15 people lost their lives and 180 people where injured in this accident. This came after some less serious accidents happened at the plant and management did not take care of it. Safety and maintenance had been cut as cost saving measures.
2006-2007 Prudhoe Bay
A number of incidents during this time which included leaks and spills polluting the ground water and violated the Clean Water Act.
There have been other incidents of fatalities and accusations of oil and propane price manipulation. BP was also known for overemphasizing their investments in alternative forms of energy and they fought safety regulations. Regulations that may have prevented, or lessened, the spill.
So what can you, the business person, learn from BP? They told a story about how committed to sustainability they were. It paid off in market share, brand awareness and untold millions in increased profit from this alone. Now they are under a greater microscope from investors, the public and the government. Not only things related to the oil spill but to every part of their business. The bill from the spill will be enormous but they have plenty of money. The damage from misleading the public about their green commitment might not be so easy to recover from.
You can’t just green your logo. It’s all or none.
