Skip to main content

Autodesk Cuts Data Center Energy Use 60%, Saves $7M

<p>The design software giant talked up the results of its aggressive work to consolidate servers, as well as a new version of its cloud-enabled Green Building Studio web service and a success story from its Clean Tech Partnership Program in its latest Sustainability Summit.</p>

An aggressive effort to eliminate data center waste is now saving Autodesk about $7 million a year, according to the design software company.

The initiative led to the consolidation of 85 percent of the company's servers over the past year and enabled the company to exceed its target to reduce data center energy use, said Lynelle Cameron, Autodesk's director of sustainability.

'We had a goal to reduce our energy use by 50 percent and we're now at 60 percent," she said. "The good news behind that is not just that we've reduced our carbon footprint significantly from our data centers, but also we have $7 million of savings annually as a result of that project."

The achievement was one of a string of green developments detailed yesterday during Autodesk's annual Sustainability Summit. The media briefing showcases the company's progress in environmental responsibility as well as products and business ventures that advance the firm's dual aims to democratize design and embed sustainability throughout the design process.

The data center project, which focused on the area where Autodesk uses the most energy, led a list that included news of enhancements to the cloud-enabled Green Building Studio web service and a success story from the firm's Clean Tech Partnership Program.

Boosting Performance for Existing Buildings

The latest version of Autodesk's Green Building Studio allows users to simultaneously pull data on a building's utility use and as much as 10 years worth of weather information for the site. The data helps building operators spot the disconnects between performance expectations based on design, actual resource consumption and the climate conditions that influence it.

Earlier versions provided weather data for more than a million virtual locations around the world, but the information available now is more refined and specific to location. "You can really understand how a building is performing relative to how it was designed to perform," Cameron said.

Closing the gap between building design and performance has become a key mission for the green building movement. It has found that even the smartest, most energy efficient building can fall far short of performance expectations if the building is not operated and maintained properly, and if occupant behavior thwarts efficiency systems and design elements. Numerous tools are being developed to keep green buildings on track and support their continuous improvement.

"This version of Green Building Studio targets existing buildings to help optimize their performance," Cameron said. "Think of the 200 million buildings on the planet that are candidates for energy efficiency renovation and retrofit."

Editor's Note: Clarification made on February 8, 2012, in reference to $7 trillion in cleantech investment.

Hydrovolts' Cleantech Innovation

Cameron also highlighted design innovation by the Seattle firm Hydrovolts, which makes customizable, plug-and play water turbines for generating hydropower. There's no need to build a dam or other structures, she said, and when smaller turbines are used, it can take less than an hour to get the system installed and running in waterways.

Hydrovolts CEO and founder Burt Hamner talked about how his firm's prize-winning turbines were created by using Autodesk software to digitally visualize and revise designs, test ideas, and consider a range of materials, their environmental impacts and performance before making a selection.

Hydrovolts received the software as participant in Autodesk's Clean Tech Partnership Program, which makes as much as $150,000 worth of design software available to emerging companies and innovators about for $50.

Cameron noted that Autodesk recently invested its trillionth dollar to further cleantech innovation. Placing that in context, global investment in cleantech is projected to reach $7 trillion in the next two decades.

The point of efforts like the partner program, said CEO Carl Bass, is to get the company's products into the hands of people who are interested and actively involved in sustainable design, but might not be able to afford the tools to pursue it fully.

But whether clients are startups, students, newcomers to green design or pros, the company's chief aims are to make design more accessible and "give people better tools to make better decisions" as they design, Bass said.

Look for more posts about the Sustainability Summit soon from GreenBiz.com Senior Writer Marc Gunther, whose interview with Bass was the keynote talk at the event, and from contributing writers Claudia Girrbach and Heather King.

Photo of server rack cluster via Shutterstock.com
 

More on this topic