Few executives contest energy prices are affecting their businesses or that these costs will likely continue to rise. A like number of executives expect there will be some form of national carbon tax or greenhouse gas cap-and-trade system put into place in the next few years. Just as those appear to be sure bets, you can also wager that CIOs will start receiving itemized energy bills from their CFOs as energy consumption takes up a larger portion of the IT budget.
To find out what CIOs can do to make data centers more energy efficient, we talked with Mark Bramfitt, principal program manager for customer energy efficiency at San Francisco-based Pacific Gas and Electric Company. PG&E provides more than 15 million Californians with natural gas and electricity (that's nearly 1 in every 20 Americans). Mr. Bramfitt is responsible for the utility's High-Tech Market programs, which focus primarily on making data centers more energy efficient. His leadership of this program is helping CIOs around the world understand how they can reduce energy consumption.
Power to the Data Centers
Data centers can use up to 100 times the energy per square foot of typical office spaces, and currently account for an estimated 1 percent to 2 percent of the nation's electricity consumption. Many have said there just simply isn't enough power available in geographies such as Manhattan or Silicon Valley, posing a major risk for data center operations. But Mr. Bramfitt noted utilities can get you power wherever you want. It just comes down to how much you're willing to pay. He said sighting a 100 megawatt data center is like locating a steel mill, but for most CIOs, this isn't the challenge.
CIOs are establishing energy-efficiency programs because they have either reached the limits of their existing facilities or they are getting close. Discussing this with Mr. Bramfitt, he noted that "at a cost of over $1,000 per square foot to build a new data center, CIOs are looking at technologies that can add two, five, or even seven years to their existing facilities."
PG&E offers a comprehensive portfolio of programs and services for the high-tech sector to help CIOs with this challenge, including financial incentives for customers pursuing energy-efficiency projects in their data centers. The company is also actively working to identify the next generation of energy-efficient technologies, helping to accelerate the spread of promising new innovations in the market. According to Mr. Bramfitt, "With our proximity to Silicon Valley, we see all the latest technology. Companies are regularly banging on our doors to get added to one of our many efficiency programs."
Virtualization and Data Storage Projects Get Incentives
As an example of how PG&E approaches the market, Mr. Bramfitt shared details on the work his company is doing in application software virtualization and server consolidation. For its internal operations, PG&E teamed with IBM to deploy a server consolidation and virtualization initiative with the explicit goal of reducing energy consumption in its own data center facilities.
The result of the project will be an 80 percent reduction in energy consumption in the data centers that span more than 40,000 square feet of raised floors in San Francisco, Fairfield, and Diablo Canyon, California. One PG&E customer made use of virtualization technology to consolidate 230 servers onto just 11 new machines, Mr. Bramfitt said.
Mr. Bramfitt's team has also been focusing on storage. Data storage growth rates are increasing dramatically as the result of such initiatives as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which requires longer periods of data retention. Unfortunately, he notes, "Data center equipment use doesn't follow the load. Running a data center isn't like running a steel mill or a factory where you turn the equipment off when there is no production. In the data center, people just leave it on."
One of the technologies Mr. Bramfitt said he's excited about is Massive Array of Idle Disks (MAID), which stores rarely-used data on hard disks that are normally turned off, helping customers realize 75 percent or more in energy savings compared to typical always-on systems. The way MAID systems work is data storage needs are characterized into different types, depending on what it is used for and how often it is accessed or changed. Data that is "persistent"--rarely changed and infrequently accessed--is saved to disks in a MAID system that is normally powered down. The information can be accessed again, but the system limits the maximum number of disks that are on at any given time.
To support the adoption rate of these types of technologies, PG&E offers incentives to customers and manufacturers. One of the first companies to qualify for the PG&E incentive is MAID systems manufacturer COPAN Systems of Longmont, Colorado. As Mr. Bramfitt stated recently, "By providing financial support, we hope to ramp up industry adoption of this technology."
A Partnership Where Everyone Wins
PG&E has budgeted almost $1B for these energy-efficiency programs. In return, by increasing energy efficiency for customers, PG&E will deliver hundreds of millions of dollars to its bottom line, satisfying its shareholders. The most encouraging part of this is that they have a track record of delivering. In the past 15 years, the per capita use of energy in California has remained flat while the rest of the country has increased 50 percent.
While customers and shareholders win, PG&E has also constructed a program in which entrepreneurs and businesses win as well. Businesses participating in the program reduce their energy consumption and delay the build out of data centers, saving themselves millions. And while the utility doesn't fund startups like a venture capitalist might, it provides them with a high-visibility program to which vendors can apply to have their technology considered for one of the utilities incentive programs.
Beyond its borders, PG&E has also formed a nationwide coalition of utilities to discuss and coordinate energy-efficiency programs for the high-tech sector, again focusing on data centers. Other utilities involved include Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric. According to Mr. Bramfitt, "The Pacific Northwest, Southwest, and Northeast are also on the top of our list because these areas have the greatest concentrations of data centers." As a result, the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA), TXU Electric Delivery, Austin Energy, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), and NSTAR have all signed on to the coalition.
The utility has also reached out to international partners, becoming the first utility to sponsor the public/private U.S.-China Energy Efficiency Alliance, founded by the Natural Resources Defense Council. The Alliance works to exchange information and facilitate technology deployment, ultimately helping China to reduce the energy intensity of its economy.
As the information economy around the world and here at home grows, energy conservation will increase in importance. Utilities and private enterprises will need to work together to find solutions, such as PG&E is putting forth.
John Davies is vice president of AMR Research's Green Technology Research. For more news on sustainability initiatives, subscribe to AMR Research's free Green Alert.
Power lines image licensed under the Creative Commons by Flickr user GiselaGiardino.
