IT Energy Efficiency Projects to Receive $115 Million

<p>Fourteen projects aimed at improving the energy efficiency of data centers and communication systems have been awarded $47 million from the U.S. Recovery Act and an additional $70 million in private industry funding.<br />  </p>

By GreenerComputing Staff

January 8, 2010

Data center - http://www.flickr.com/photos/clayirving/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

The government and private industry are pumping $115 million in 14 projects aimed at improving the energy efficiency of equipment, software, power supply and cooling in the information technology (IT) and communications industries.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is awarding $47 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and private industry is throwing in $70 million.

The projects focus on three areas: equipment and software, power supply chain and cooling.

Equipment and software projects will focus on servers, networking devices and other items as well as software that can optimize energy use.

Power supply chain projects will work on technologies that minimize power loss and heat generation that occurs in server-based IT and communications systems. Power Assure, which is receiving $5 million from the DOE, is working on power management software that the company estimates could reduce energy use by data centers and large server farms by 50 percent by turning servers on and off as needed.

Cooling projects will look at ways to make cooling equipment more effective and work with less power. Federspiel Controls is getting $584,000 from the DOE to help it develop a dynamic cooling system that includes variable fan speeds, adjustable air inlets and wireless temperature sensors to replace static cooling systems, which account for about 25 percent of the energy used in data centers.

The recipients of the funding, and how much they will receive from the DOE, are:

Equipment and software projects