Business Specialties
Technology
Jun 11, 2009
By: Jack Terranova, Colliers ABR Inc.
With the new administration trying to tackle America’s dependency on energy abroad, data centers, as spearheaded by the Department of Energy, are once again becoming the focus of the industry in its effort to reduce energy consumption. Nationally, data centers comprise 1.5 percent of all electricity consumed within the United States. Only a few years ago, metrics such as DCiE, or Data Center Infrastructure Efficiency--whose definition is IT Energy Consumption/Total Data Center Energy (or its inverse) Power Utilization Effectiveness, or PUE (=1/DCiE)--did not exist. Most of us who managed and built data centers did so following the premise that whatever the IT director wanted, he or she was to get. Energy costs for the most part were not an issue; up time and reliability were. Free cooling and other curtailment methods were not employed. Many of these data centers, built five or 10 years ago, are still operational.
Then, in 2008, oil hit $147 a barrel. Many of the data centers were consuming anywhere from 10 to 80 watts per square foot!
With vacancies in commercial office buildings rising, IT budgets have been cut across the board. New York State has the second-largest concentration of data centers in the United States and as the financial capital of the world has been hit very hard by the downturn in the economy. This makes it all the more difficult to find funding to implement initiatives, which of course cost money.
That’s where government involvement comes in. Before the bottom fell out of the market, back in September 2007, the Department of Energy had the foresight to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Green Grid. The Green Grid is a consortium of IT companies that are looking at reducing the energy consumption of IT equipment--a novel approach. If you have not visited its Web site or become a member, you may want to do so. According to the Department of Energy, data centers are the fasting-growing industry in the United States, projected to grow 12 percent a year through 2011. In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg under plaNYC has proposed reducing greenhouse gases by 30 percent by the year 2030. Working in conjunction with New York State Energy Research and Development, under the PON 1219 Existing Facilities Program, companies can earn 16 cents per kilowatt hour as an incentive for each kilowatt hour reduced. As much as $5 million is available per facility, not to exceed 50 percent of the project cost. NYSERDA has also just issued RFP 1263, wherein NYSERDA, through a sector-based approach, is striving to develop statewide strategies to address customers in the industrial and process sector (including data centers) to help improve efficiency and reduce energy consumption.
Energy efficiency opportunities exist. Working with Green Grid, you can explore load management and server innovation. Working with in-house facilities management, you can investiage free cooling, better air management and optimization of your plant. Funding exists to help ease the burden, and the payback with these incentives makes achievement within reach.
Jack Terranova is director of operations for Colliers ABR Inc.
By: Jack Terranova, Colliers ABR Inc.
With the new administration trying to tackle America’s dependency on energy abroad, data centers, as spearheaded by the Department of Energy, are once again becoming the focus of the industry in its effort to reduce energy consumption. Nationally, data centers comprise 1.5 percent of all electricity consumed within the United States. Only a few years ago, metrics such as DCiE, or Data Center Infrastructure Efficiency--whose definition is IT Energy Consumption/Total Data Center Energy (or its inverse) Power Utilization Effectiveness, or PUE (=1/DCiE)--did not exist. Most of us who managed and built data centers did so following the premise that whatever the IT director wanted, he or she was to get. Energy costs for the most part were not an issue; up time and reliability were. Free cooling and other curtailment methods were not employed. Many of these data centers, built five or 10 years ago, are still operational. Then, in 2008, oil hit $147 a barrel. Many of the data centers were consuming anywhere from 10 to 80 watts per square foot!
With vacancies in commercial office buildings rising, IT budgets have been cut across the board. New York State has the second-largest concentration of data centers in the United States and as the financial capital of the world has been hit very hard by the downturn in the economy. This makes it all the more difficult to find funding to implement initiatives, which of course cost money.
That’s where government involvement comes in. Before the bottom fell out of the market, back in September 2007, the Department of Energy had the foresight to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Green Grid. The Green Grid is a consortium of IT companies that are looking at reducing the energy consumption of IT equipment--a novel approach. If you have not visited its Web site or become a member, you may want to do so. According to the Department of Energy, data centers are the fasting-growing industry in the United States, projected to grow 12 percent a year through 2011. In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg under plaNYC has proposed reducing greenhouse gases by 30 percent by the year 2030. Working in conjunction with New York State Energy Research and Development, under the PON 1219 Existing Facilities Program, companies can earn 16 cents per kilowatt hour as an incentive for each kilowatt hour reduced. As much as $5 million is available per facility, not to exceed 50 percent of the project cost. NYSERDA has also just issued RFP 1263, wherein NYSERDA, through a sector-based approach, is striving to develop statewide strategies to address customers in the industrial and process sector (including data centers) to help improve efficiency and reduce energy consumption.
Energy efficiency opportunities exist. Working with Green Grid, you can explore load management and server innovation. Working with in-house facilities management, you can investiage free cooling, better air management and optimization of your plant. Funding exists to help ease the burden, and the payback with these incentives makes achievement within reach.
Jack Terranova is director of operations for Colliers ABR Inc.
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