Energy Efficiency Programs and Evaluation in Europe (And more importantly, an excuse to talk about the World Cup)

I am finally returning after a long hiatus from blogging, and from two weeks in Europe after speaking at the International Energy Program Evaluation Conference (IEPEC).  My talk was on EMI’s work evaluating data center efficiency programs for US utilities. EMI was also a silver sponsor for the event, which was IEPEC’s first conference outside the U.S.. The conference included numerous interesting sessions on methods and challenges in evaluating energy efficiency programs in the U.S., Europe, Australia and China, making it a truly international conference.

The U.S. vs. the Rest of the World

There was an interesting undercurrent at the conference stemming from differences in the way energy efficiency programs are run internationally. In the U.S. evaluation programs tend to focus on utility run programs, which are typically accountable to the goals put on them from state utility commissions. At the federal level, energy efficiency programs in the U.S. do not have the same level of accountability – there are efforts to accurately determine savings but there is not the same focus on independent evaluation to confirm savings.

In the rest of the world, especially in Europe, it seems that programs and evaluation are mostly on the national government level and do not have the same level of accountability that U.S. utilities are subject to by regulators. One of the most interesting sessions at IEPEC was a panel discussion with Paolo Bertoldi of the European Commission and Dian Grueneich, the Lead Commissioner for Energy Efficiency of the California Public Utilities Commission.  The debate revolved around the need for energy savings goals and accountability through evaluation.  Paolo of the EC contended that program goals were unnecessary, that you can create programs that can help people save energy, and then drive them to save energy through other efforts like carbon taxation.  With this approach, and with no goals to meet, there is less need for independent evaluation to determine the impacts of a program.  Commissioner Grueneich, on the other hand, was arguing more for goals and accountability for the money spent on energy efficiency.

I can see Paolo’s argument, but the scientist and engineer in me wants to see real results.  You set up a program on the theory that it’s going to provide energy savings, but until you study it closely you do not know what the savings are actually achieved.  Furthermore, if you do not have good metrics to measure the impacts of the program, how do you know when a program needs improvement or how much it has improved when you make changes?  In practice, there is often a large gap between program theory, implementation and results; evaluators help define and reduce these differences for program designers.  Furthermore, solid process evaluation helps programs find ways to improve its processes, which in turn improve the program impacts.

I have a feeling this debate will continue, but IEPEC deserves credit for bringing this conversation to a truly international stage.  There seemed to be a lot of interest from European participants on learning more about the established evaluation techniques used for U.S. utilities and the development of international evaluation standards, and the success of energy efficiency programs can not but help to improve by the sharing of this information.

So, What Does This Have to Do with the World Cup?

The week after the conference I spent traveling in North East France with a short jump into Germany.  As an avid soccer fan, I spent much of this time sitting in cafes and restaurants watching the World Cup.  During the France v. Uruguay game the streets of Strasbourg were virtually barren and most everything was closed on a Friday night at 7:30 pm.  It seemed as if the French were busy watching quietly at home.  Across the border, in Freiburg Germany, every restaurant had what looked like a brand new TV outside the door so you could sit outside and watch the game, or casual passer-byers could watch the game (sales of flat screens must be through the roof in Germany).  They also had huge screens in some of the public parks for viewing.  After Germany beat Australia 4-0 in their first game, the bars and streets were absolutely mobbed with celebration.  Back in the U.S., things are less intense, but interest in the Cup, and the U.S. National Team seems to be at an all-time high after the U.S.’s great run through the group stage and emotional win on Wednesday.

So What’s the Point?

Theses experiences transposed on each other has driven home the fact that the world is increasingly becoming an international community.  There are large differences in mentalities, traditions and practices around the world, and engagement in the international community, whether through friendly competition or collaboration, helps us understand and learn from our international peers and see things from alternate viewpoints.  I like to feel that international engagement and sharing of information helps everyone involved, so thanks to IEPEC for a great conference, and to FIFA and ESPN for such a great event.

As a side note, IT technology and data centers are two of the tools helping the world participate in these global experiences.  The New York Times reports that ESPN.com’s traffic is up 70% over its traditional annual peak during the final four – another reminder of the explosive growth of internet usage and data center power consumption.  Ok, enough on that.  Spain / Portugal kicks off in an hour – should be a scorcher! Check it out on ESPN3.com.

Should Utilities Look at Data Centers to Achieve Increasing Efficiency Goals?

The market for energy efficiency is increasing, and more states and Public Utility Comissions (PUCs) are jumping on the bandwagon every day.  But where are these new electricity savings going to come from?

I recently stumbled on this ACEEE report (released in March 2009 and available here) covering the increased energy efficiency goals of many states.  As the paper summary says, “In just the last few years, energy efficiency has evolved from being largely a token gesture or a ‘public benefits’ set-aside, to being a top-priority utility system resource.”  As a result, many states (including Minnesota, Illinois, Ohio, New York, Maryland and Vermont) were increasing their yearly efficiency goals to 1.5% – 2.0% a year, when “the very few top performing states in the nation were only achieving savings in the area of 0.8% per year.”  This fact makes these new savings goals look very aggressive.  In my mind this is a great thing because efficiency is the cleanest and cheapest form of capacity.

There are a few other interesting findings from this report, which reaffirm a couple persistent issues and trends in this industry:

1. “Energy efficiency spending was relatively balanced between the residential and non-residential sectors (median across the states of 44% and 56% respectively), but that savings were relatively skewed toward the non-residential sector (63% non- residential).”
2. “Also striking was the extent to which the lighting end use dominated the savings accomplishments, accounting for nearly two-thirds of all savings in the states which had disaggregated data available.  In the residential sector alone, lighting accounted for between 63% and 92% of reported savings.”

So let us summarize and distill what we have learned so far:

1. States are looking very aggressively to energy efficiency as part of their resource planning, with rapidly increasing goals.
2. The bulk of this savings is coming from non-residential (e.g., Agricultural, Commercial, and Industrial) measures.
3. Lighting makes up the vast majority of achieved savings.

So this begs my initial question – where are these new savings going to come from?

As the price of efficient lighting comes down, and customers are increasingly happy with the quality of new efficient lamp designs, how are utilities going to continue to squeeze savings out of an increasingly saturated market?  Like squeezing juice from an orange, at some point the effort needed increases faster than the juice keeps coming.  To make matters worse for utility programs, as the federal government gets in the mix, new legislation could eventually phase out much of the inefficient lighting.  This increases the baseline lighting efficiency and makes it more difficult to claim large savings for lighting projects.

Since the majority of savings typically come from the non-residential sector, it seems logical to focus on these industries for more savings. And, where better to look than some of the most energy dense facilities there are – data centers!  Studies indicate that data centers are up to 40 times more energy intensive than typical office buildings and that savings potential can run from 25% – 50% per facility.  This all adds up to a very concentrated opportunity for energy savings.  Sure there are a number of challenges to utility incentives in this space, but what other industries and facility types are utilities going to look to in order to achieve these kind of increased savings goals? To me, this speaks to a large need to investigate and to learn to overcome the challenges to utilities creating incentives for energy efficiency in data centers.

Utility Sponsored Incentives for Data Center Efficiency

One of the big barriers we see to energy efficiency in the data center market is a knowledge gap between utilities that are new to the data center market and data center operators who are not necessarily fluent in energy efficiency or in the language of utilities.  Last week I presented at AFCOM’s 30^th Data Center World Conference in Nashville, TN.  I was there to share the research we’ve done at EMI into what utilities out there are offering data center efficiency incentives and to try and help close this gap.

Part of the presentation was focused on trying to get the data center operators to understand the utility mindset – what motivates utilities and what makes sense for them to offer money for energy efficiency. This is one of my favorite slides, because it attempts to answer one of the questions I get the most from non utility/EE folks:

I love this question because it really gets to the heart of the economics of energy efficiency.  In the end, it often comes down to this singular point made here by Bruce Folsom, the director of energy efficiency programming at the utility Avista in Eastern Washington State, “Our energy future is about using the resources we have wisely, and energy efficiency remains our lowest-cost resource.”

To further this goal of reducing the knowledge gap between utilities and data center operators, I attempt to explain incentives as trying to influence you to implement a project, or to help motivate a transition of an idea into an action. This transition is illustrated here:

The presentation includes explanations of how utility incentives can reduce payback times for energy efficiency projects and increase the ROI of these projects.  In addition, I do a run down of incentives offered for data centers and examples of utilities offering these incentives.  One breakdown I explore is where different incentives are applied within the data center, as illustrated in this slide:

I finish with a list of steps for data center operators to engage with their utility to pursue these incentives:

1. Become familiar with the utility’s programs

• Check your utility’s web site for information on available programs and contact information
• Contact your utility or your account manager to discuss available programs/incentives

2. Identify projects

• Schedule an energy audit or technical assistance from utility (where available)
• Find projects relevant for incentives

3. Confirm Projects

• Fill out any applicable pre-application paperwork to confirm relevance and incentive amounts

4. Perform pre-inspection with utility (where applicable)

5. Install measure

6. Perform post-inspection (where applicable)

• Calculate savings and incentive amount

7. Apply for incentive or rebate

So that’s my attempt to distill my hour long presentation into a blog post.  I was really pleased by the reaction at Data Center World, which speaks for the need for people to help plug these gaps in communication and knowledge.  I had a number of utilities in the room, a few consultants and some data center managers, and the question and answer period turned into more of a discussion between utility folks and managers.  That’s what I like to see.

I would definitely be interested in any feedback on what I’ve included here, or in any information readers have on available programs.  We’re attempting to fill out a matrix of available programs by utility so any information would be greatly appreciated.  Also if anyone is interested in the full presentation let me know.  You can always reach me at ajhoward (at) emi1.com

Based on the reaction I will be attempting to update the presentation and will resubmitting my abstract to hopefully speak at the next Data Center World Conference in Las Vegas in October.  Thanks!

Utility and ENERGY STAR Collaboration for Improved Specifications and Programs

I spent Tuesday reacquainting myself with my old friends over at the ENERGY STAR program by attending the ENERGY STAR information sessions for Servers and Storage that preceded the Green Grid Technical Forum. It was interesting seeing things from the “other side of the podium” by being a stakeholder at these meetings instead of being in my old role of assisting the EPA on the development of the specifications.

Status of the Specifications

In terms of status, there seems to be some significant work to be done on both specifications, but as usual EPA is asking the right questions. For both specifications the question is how can you quantify the generalized “efficiency” of the product, or the amount of useful work and performance you get from a system for a given energy consumption? This is the ideal outcome of this process – what everyone wants. As Andrew Fanara (the lead representative of the EPA) said, “I’d also like to ride a unicorn to work”. Meaning that it would be impossible to get a perfect metric, so for now we need a method to rank IT equipment by it’s efficiency, but don’t expect it to be perfect. There’s hope that we’ll get there eventually, but it will be a long processes, as there are a lot of details to be worked out.  The server specification feels like it’s getting closer – they’re currently working on version 2.0 so they’ve been asking these questions for longer – but there’s still a lot of work to be done.  One good thing is the EPA is showing that they’re willing to think a little differently about these products.  I think this is necessary because the complexity of these products and the subtleties of this market make theses specification development efforts very different from many other products the EPA is used to dealing with.

Utilities and ENERGY STAR

I’ve been feeling that there is a gap in thinking between the EPA and the utility industry, and the funny thing is that I think they really need each other. The utilities are constantly looking for new savings opportunities and it’s a lot easier for them to develop effective programs if they are built on the back of good efficiency specifications.  What the EPA needs are stakeholders with a voice to help drive these specifications towards increased levels of rigor for energy savings.

In addition, there needs to be a closing of the gap between the needs of utilities and the output of the ENERGY STAR program. ENERGY STAR should be producing specifications that can easily be adopted for utility programs.  This should be a high priority for ENERGY STAR, but it feels like the current process is to produce the specification without utilities in mind, and then try and adapt the result to a program.  If utilities want to play in this space, they need to be at the table learning about this industry and helping drive the agenda.

Right now vendors dominate the ENERGY STAR meetings. The vendors are extremely knowledgeable, but obviously biased towards their own products and agendas. The meetings often result in vendors standing up and talking about what isn’t possible or what EPA shouldn’t do. What the efficiency community needs are stakeholders at the table telling EPA what they need to help make these specifications useful tools to leverage for energy savings. The way to speed up this process and to keep ENERGY STAR specifications relevant is to have efficiency advocates help drive the process.  This may involve helping generate data and providing some technical resources. This will be expensive, but if the utilities (and other EE advocates) pool their efforts this should be cost effective and will help ensure a useful product for adoption.  The more utilities bring to the table, the more influence they will have.

The thing is that EVERYONE should benefit from useful ENERGY STAR specifications and effective utility programs that leverage these specifications:  ENERGY STAR can further increase their growing relevance in this emerging market; utilities can run influential and cost effective programs to meet their goals; and vendors can market more efficient product offerings.  It’s a win, win, win.  We can no longer let the voices of manufacturers, who seem afraid of being left out of the party because of inefficient product offerings, dominate this conversation. It’s time for utilities and other advocates to team together and help influence this process to get a leg up in this market.

“Energy Savings” versus “Demand Reduction”

A funny thing in the efficiency and utility segment is the constant confusion between power and energy, or between kilowatts and kilowatt-hours. Even among engineers who clearly know the difference, it’s interesting that people are still constantly confusing the two, or at least use them interchangeably in situations where you really can’t.  A sure way to insult an energy engineer is to say they “can’t tell a kW from a kWh.

Technically, power (kW) is an instantaneous measure of the rate in which you’re using energy, while energy is a cumulative measure of how much of a resource you’re using.  Confused?!

Another way to think of it is that our resources, such as coal or natural gas, store a certain amount of energy. The power you draw dictates the rate at which you are using this energy.  If you draw more power you’ll use up your coal more quickly.  If you use less power your coal will last longer.  Obviously using less power is a good thing because your resources will last longer.

Turns out this distinction between power and energy is very important in the utility industry, and therefore effects how they run their conservation programs.  As residential customers, most people are used to being charged by the kWh, a measure of cumulative energy used.  A residential utility meter therefore measures the cumulative kWh you use in a given month, which is what the utility charges you for.

One of the chief goals of conservation programs is to reduce the peak power draw (kW) on the system, and not necessarily the overall energy used.  The peak demand is what dictates how many power plants need to be running to service a population.  Utilities that are trying to delay the construction of new power plants will look to reduce the peak power demand from their customers.  For this reason, large energy users (such as commercial and industrial customers) will pay not only for the energy usage, but also for their peak demand usage.  This gives a clear pricing signal to the customer to reduce peak demand.

A lot of utility energy efficiency programs will focus on reducing demand and will pay incentives based on reductions in peak kW – not kWh savings.  Austin Energy and Southern California Edison are two examples I’ve found of utilities that base some incentives on kW reduction.  Often this reduction needs to happen during times of peak demand to be eligible for incentives. Typically peak demand occurs in the middle of the afternoon on a hot summer day when everyone is running the AC. In contrast, here in the Pacific Northwest almost no one has AC but most people have electric heat, so demand peaks on cold winter days.

To illustrate this concept, here’s a peak load curve on a natural gas plant I found at natgas.info.

This topic came to mind as I’ve been preparing my materials for my talk at AFCOM, where I will be summarizing data center utility incentives to data center managers and IT professionals. I’m seeking different ways to explain these concepts in simplified terms so that industry members can understand the utilities’ motivation in running conservation programs.

This whole concept reminded me of a neat article I read a while back about an Arizona data center taking advantage of time-of-use pricing.  The data center has installed a system that makes ice at night and uses that ice during the day to cool the data center.  While systems like this don’t necessarily produce energy savings, they create a significant amount of peak demand reduction by shifting that demand to off peak hours (this approach is often referred to as “load shifting”).  The local utility (Arizona Public Service Co.) charges only 2¢ per kWh for off peak energy and 13¢ per kWh for on peak energy.  In this way, the company can save 11¢ per kWh (or 85%) on their energy costs by shifting the demand to off-peak hours (this is probably not quite true since there are likely some loses associated with the load shifting but you get the point).

One of the attractive things about the “smart grid” or “smart meters” is the ability for utilities to offer different prices based on time of use to residential customers so that consumers can reduce their individual peak demand.  This would help further flatten the load profile, reduce the number of power plants needed to service the population and help make electricity production more efficient.

I’m sure that I, like others, will continue to interchange the words energy and power when talking about conservation, but it’s often important to recognize that difference when identifying opportunities to increase efficiency in the system.

Data-Driven Prescriptive Incentives for Data Centers

I’ve spent the last few weeks reviewing information on utility data center energy efficiency programs for a presentation I’m putting together for AFCOM Data Center World, and have been struck by how few prescriptive programs (or “deemed measures”) are available for data center equipment. The few programs that do exist seem to vary widely and are distributed among different utilities around the country.

The most important information you need for creating these programs are data on which to base your assumptions and calculations, including, data on the typical products in the market (or the baseline) and data on the more efficient offerings.  The delta between these two establishes the energy savings on which to base an incentive.  This was similar in my previous work developing specifications for the ENERGY STAR program for the EPA – the biggest problem was access to quality data of sufficient quantity to really understand the energy use of the products. This is a great strength of the ENERGY STAR program, because as a trusted third party they are able to pull in data from a number of different current, and sometimes future, products to get a real sense of how energy is used across different manufacturers.  When they are pulled together these EPA data sets often seem to be some of the best publically available data sets on the energy consumption of these products – a resource that is useful for the program, as well as for other advocates outside the program.

It seems that the utility industry lacks a similar mechanism to collect sufficient data to develop these prescriptive incentive programs for data center equipment.  The primary source of data seems to be data collected through demonstrations and custom incentive applications.  But the utility industry needs a large amount of data to maintain confidence that the prescriptive programs will deliver actual energy savings that they can reliably claim for their programs. However, the utility industry, like ENERGY STAR itself, has only recently taken the plunge into the data center industry.  A lot of programs have a random assortment of incentives they’ve given out for data centers – an efficient UPS here, an economizer there, a few virtual servers in the mix – and do not seem to be reaching the critical mass needed to gather the quantity of information needed to effectively develop prescriptive programs.

I think this turns into a chicken and egg problem. Utilities sometimes find it hard to get traction on their data center programs because they do not have the prescriptive programs that make it easy for the customer to participate, but without the data from participation in the programs they do not have the information needed to develop the prescriptive programs.  As usual, available data seems to be a bottleneck.  What is needed are some central depositories of data with mechanisms to develop intelligent incentives based on that data.  A lot of different groups and organizations have the potential to work toward this goal (and I believe are doing so), and it is an important goal as more prescriptive incentives would certainly help capture some of the energy savings potential which we all know exists in this industry. I’d be really interested to hear about any potential efforts in this area, so if anyone knows about anything fill me in!

Thoughts from PG&E’s Former Data Center Efficiency Program Manager

I’m getting caught up on some news from over the holidays (happy new year by the way!) and came across this two part interview with Mark Bramfitt, the former program manager for PG&E’s High Tech program which includes data center efficiency projects (found here: Part 1, Part 2).  Mark has been very vocal over the years in spreading information on PG&E’s ground breaking programs in this area and has been a great ambassador to the high tech and utility industries alike on data center utility incentives.

EMI performed the process evaluation of the PG&E’s High Tech Program (which can be found here) and I got to know Mark initially through his support for my work with the EPA on the ENERGY STAR Computer Server specifications.

Scouring through the two interviews I found a number of interesting points from Mark.

On Barriers to Program Adoption:

In my discussions with utilities across the U.S., this is probably the single biggest barrier to program adoption – they can’t find firms who can do the calculations, or resources to appropriately evaluate and review them.

What has slowed us down, I think, is that the IT industry and IT managers had essentially no experience with utility efficiency programs three years ago. It simply has taken us far longer than we anticipated to get the utility partnership message out there to the IT community.

These two quotes emphasize the fact that there’s a gap of knowledge (and talent) between the utility industry and the high tech companies that equip and run data centers.  On the utility front – there is a gap in knowledge about the IT industry.  The fast pace of technological innovation and quick growth in this industry presents challenges in finding or developing the expertise to implement effective programs (including performing the necessary calculations and analysis).  On the high tech company front – there is a gap in knowledge about how to identify and leverage these new programs and efficiently perform the analysis and calculations to receive the incentives.  My conversations with industry members on both sides highlight these frustrations, and the ultimate success of data center efficiency programs will hinge on closing these gaps in the coming years.

New Opportunities

On the retrofit side, we’re seeing interest in air flow management measures as the hot spot, perhaps because customers are getting the message that the returns are great, and it is an easy way to extend the life and capacity of existing facilities.

Metering and monitoring systems lead people to make simple changes, and can directly measure energy savings in support of utility incentive programs. We also like that some systems are moving beyond just measurement into control of facility and IT equipment, and to the extent that they can do so, we can provide incentive funding to support implementation.

There is a lot of room for potential growth from the basic programs currently offered by utilities.  Mark points out one of the areas of low hanging fruit is with air flow management.  This can include simple efforts like blanking panels or more advanced efforts like switching to hot/cold aisle containment.  The challenges here are in confirming the energy savings, which is where the expertise mentioned above is needed.

Metering and monitoring is always a hot topic of conversation in this industry.  Future and current efforts for quantifying energy efficiency gains rely on access to quality data, so the implementation of better measurement and monitoring would be a big a boost to future energy efficiency projects. The challenge, again is quantifying concrete savings from these measures.

These two points bring up what I see as a main challenge to the utility industry in simply and reliably quantifying the energy savings from these measures so they can use incentives to drive these right behaviors.  It’s a significant challenge and will take some creative thinking. Another of Mark’s points emphasizes the potential outcome of these challenges:

That being said, utilities in California are under tremendous pressure to deliver energy efficiency as cost effectively as possible, so some of the industry leadership activities undertaken by PG&E may have to be de-emphasized, and we may not be able to afford to develop new programs and services if they won’t deliver savings.

To get over this hurdle, the industry needs to think creatively on how to efficiently (i.e. cost effectively) justify incentives and programs that help drive the right behavior.  There’s a large potential for energy savings in this industry, and utilities should have a role in driving these behaviors, we just have to continue to push to find effective models for doing this.

Future Growth of the Industry

PG&E is not seeing the level of new data center construction that we had in ’07 and ’08, but the collocation community tells me demand is exceeding supply by 3-to-1. They just can’t get financing to build new facilities.

This last point emphasizes that despite the credit crunch, demand remains high.  Once some capital is freed up we should continue to see rapid growth of the industry and increased opportunities to effect change through intelligent incentives.

Utilities, Data Centers, and Social Media

I found this interesting post today on Triplepundit.  I was amazed at the combination of themes covered in this post as I kick off this blog.  Here are some of the themes:

• Cyber shopping for the holiday season
• The growth of consumer electronics sales
• Upcoming challenges facing utilities
• The use of social media to communicate ideas

There’s a lot here, but it can be distilled down to a couple key points relevant to this blog.

1. The growth in use of the internet, consumer electronics (which increasingly drive internet use) and online social networking tools, which are the things that increasingly drive the growth of data centers and their energy usage.
2. The need for utilities to use these tools to connect with customers for better customer service and energy saving opportunities.

The thing that makes this interesting is it really illustrates the idea that not only are data centers driving increased electricity use, but they’re also providing us tools to enable energy savings and help spread information on energy saving opportunities (like this blog!).

The author drives home the point that utilities should be dynamic in their thinking to take advantage of these trends, saying “The evidence appears compelling that if an electric utility does not engage its customers in a communal, customer-centric, process then the customers will use new media paths to find non-utility sourced solutions, such as the emergence of iPhone apps that enable enterprise or home scale energy management solutions, including interfacing to onsite solar and battery systems.”

From what I’ve seen, this really seems applicable to the data center industry, as you have an advanced, high-tech industry looking to utilities for support and guidance on opportunities for energy savings. The more utilities can get in this role of gathering and disseminating opportunities for energy savings to data center customers, and possibly offering financial incentives where they make sense, the more they can help lead this industry to save energy and keep the electricity growth in this industry from rising as quickly as the growth in demand for digital services. Helping limit the rapid growth of data center energy use will help utilities be able to meet future capacity needs.

The irony is that the some of the very data centers which offer utilities opportunities for substantial energy savings give us the tools to help influence the energy market and realize these savings.

Welcome to the EMI Data Center Blog!

Thanks for visiting the new Energy Market Innovations (EMI) data center blog. Over the years EMI has worked with clients to increase the effectiveness of energy efficiency programs through strategic consulting and evaluation.  Since joining EMI in July, I’ve been excited by the prospect of using my expertise to apply this focus to the growing industry of data centers and information technology (IT) equipment.

Various estimates indicate that data centers are currently responsible for 1.5 to 3.0% of the total electricity use in the US, and that energy use from these facilities is projected to continue at double digit yearly growth rates for the foreseeable future. Regardless of which estimates you believe, it is apparent that the energy use of these facilities is significant and continues to grow with the increased demand for digital services. Over the last few years many experts have collected lists of best practices and many vendors have released more efficient equipment, but more work has to be done to ensure that these practices and technologies are embraced and adopted throughout the industry.

This blog intends to provide a resource for professionals interested in energy efficiency in the data center market, with a focus on how to continue to develop intelligent and effective initiatives for increasing the market penetration of best practices and efficient technologies. This blog will initially focus on utility sponsored initiatives and endeavors to create a bridge of information between the electrical utility and data center industries.  Through this blog, we’ll be keeping you up to date with current news and trends with up to date commentary on how current happenings are applicable to the world of utility sponsored data center energy efficiency initiatives.

Enjoy.  And, of course, being a blog focused on innovation in the digital economy, we’d be remiss to not take advantage of the latest social networking tools.  So please join us via RSS Feeds, Twitter and LinkedIn.