Cutting Energy Usage in IT

by Jodi Mardesich

Green initiatives in IT go beyond recycling and reuse. Energy consumption is a hot topic as organizations discover that reducing energy usage can produce significant savings.

For most organizations, the first foray into environmental initiatives involved becoming better corporate citizens by responsibly recycling and reusing computer equipment. Lately, companies are beginning to focus on cutting energy consumption, not only as a means to reduce their carbon output and impact on the environment, but also as a tangible way to save money.

According to a report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), data centers are significant consumers of electricity, responsible for about 61 billion kilowatt hours in 2006, equivalent to 1.5% of total U.S. electricity consumption. That electricity consumption cost companies about $4.5 billion in 2006. The EPA report states that if current trends continue, national energy consumption for servers and data centers is expected to nearly double by 2011, potentially endangering the environment and putting further strain on an already burdened power grid.

As power requirements continue to grow, energy costs will emerge as the second highest operating cost in 70% of worldwide data center facilities by 2009, says Michael A. Bell, a Gartner analyst. IT organizations are concerned about energy consumption and the rising operating costs associated with escalating consumption. According to Gartner, 70% of IT organizations point to power and cooling as top concerns.

"Increased power translates into significant increase in heat gain, where the electrical cost to cool the data center can equal or exceed the power to energize the computer equipment," says Bell. "The heat produced by this high density requires new solutions in power and cooling management, specialty cooling solutions, data center design and layout, and processor efficiency."

CIOs can address energy consumption in two ways: by demanding more energy-efficient products from vendors and by instituting strategies for reducing the energy consumption of equipment they already have.

Designing products to be more energy efficient
Vendors are addressing concerns by developing more energy-efficient enclosures, processors and cooling solutions, Bell says.

"The leading processor manufacturers are battling to produce more energy-efficient chipsets," he says. "Server manufacturers are employing more efficient power supplies, heat sinks and power management systems, as well as offering a host of in-rack cooling solutions, supplemented by facility design and assessment services. We'll see fully integrated management systems that will monitor and manage server workloads and power/cooling demand and optimize capacities in real time."

Companies are also joining together to create standards and best practices. For example, the Green Grid, 80 PLUS and the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct are all tackling the issue of energy efficiency. 

"Until recently, IT equipment's energy usage was an output of its design and development, which was geared solely toward performance and price," says Christopher Mines, an analyst with Forrester Research. "Now a product's energy usage is an input to design."

Some companies, such as Dell and Sun, are offering services to help their customers reduce energy usage.

Designing strategies to promote energy efficiency
Gartner recommends IT organizations develop strategies to address the negative effects of using computer and communications equipment, as the growth in power requirements and levels of waste that it produces render the current state unsustainable. Strategies include measuring power consumption, reducing consumption, halting over-provisioning, improving cooling methods and turning power management on.

• Start measuring power consumption The first step is to take inventory and determine your company's "carbon footprint" -- how energy used for running computer equipment translates to greenhouse gas emissions.
• Consume fewer servers and printers by using server virtualization Servers often run at low capacity. Server virtualization allows multiple applications and operating systems to run on a single box, reducing power needs of separately run servers.
• Stop over-provisioning Over-provisioning, or buying and running extra servers, wastes energy and resources. Determine real needs via capacity planning.
• Improve the efficiency of cooling Traditionally, data centers have been cooled via air conditioning. An alternative to air conditioning is piping cool water through data centers. As a side benefit, water cooling also reduces noise output.
• Turn power management on  The power management feature of operating systems can conserve energy by telling the hard drive to stop spinning when not in use or putting the computer into a lower-power mode by going into standby or hibernate mode. Use a low power state or turn equipment off after hours. In addition, try CPU stepping. "Almost 10% of all power use comes from CPUs," says Andrew Kutz, a Burton Group analyst. "Throttle down to a lower frequency to lower power consumption," he advises.

Other "green" initiatives
Organizations wishing to address the ill effects of energy consumption on the environment might consider attempting to be carbon neutral. Companies can invest in carbon-free initiatives to offset their carbon production, says Kutz. For example, Yahoo has announced plans to change the way it consumes energy and is investing in greenhouse gas reduction projects, which besides offsetting its carbon emissions and their impact on the environment should also reduce operating expenses as the company uses less energy.

Organizations should also check into their eligibility for rebates from energy providers. Some local providers have incentive programs for reducing energy consumption. For example, PG&E in California and Austin Energy in Texas offer rebates for companies that use variable frequency drivers (VFD) installed in fans.

"During the next five years, increasing financial, environmental, legislative and risk-related pressures will force IT organizations to get 'greener'; that is to say, more environmentally sustainable," says Simon Mingay, research vice president at Gartner. "'Going green' is no longer the reserve of a minority 'doing the right thing,'" adds Mingay. "It's becoming an essential activity for all IT leaders."

Jodi Mardesich writes about business and technology. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Fortune, San Jose Mercury News, Salon, and Slate.