Green data centre technology reduces GHGs by 13% – Greenpeace argues for renewable power

A new report from cleantech market research firm Pike Research says that the widespread adoption of data centre technologies and best practices could significantly limit the growth of emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from data centres through to 2016. Emissions are expected to total 1326 million tons if no action is taken, but green data centre best practices could reduce that total to 1156 million tons, a saving of 13%.

Corporate computing requirements continue to grow, consumer IT is expanding and the adoption of IT in emerging countries is escalating. At the same time, the adoption of cloud computing is pushing more of the IT into data centres. Pike estimates that the data centre industry now consumes around 1.5%% of the world’s energy.

The research firm believes that addressing these issues represents an annual market opportunity that will be worth more than $45bn worldwide by 2016. Double-digit revenue growth is projected for Europe and North America (CAGRs of almost 27% for both markets), with even higher estimates for the Asia Pacific region.

 

At first glance the savings of 13% seem relatively small, given the opportunities there are to reduce data centre power use, such as server consolidation and virtualisation, running machines hotter to reduce cooling, using external air to cool and so on. But the sobering thought is that, with data centre capacity growing so rapidly, the impact of these green data centre actions only limits the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by less than 15%. It’s a reminder of how far there is yet to go in reducing ICT emissions.

The findings give some support to Greenpeace’s green cloud campaign to get more renewable energy used in data centres. Last week Greenpeace activists barricaded themselves in an ‘iPod’ at Apple’s headquarters to protest against the company’s coal-powered iCloud.

The protest seems to have had an impact. On Friday Apple’s website said that by the end of 2012 all the needs of its Maiden, North Carolina, data centre would be met by renewable energy – 60% from its own generation.

Preparing your organisation for IT power management

A guest post from Barclay Bicksler, Senior Manager of Customer Success at Verdiem .

When organisations start thinking about introducing power management into their IT environment, they tend to focus on how they will put systems into a lower power state (sleep). But how and when to wake systems is just as important.
That’s why it’s worth taking time to consider the entire power management life cycle - when to put the systems to sleep, how and when to wake them up, what systems to measure and manage and what level of involvement users have in the power management process.

In a properly deployed power management solution, the impact to end users should be minimal, but it’s important for organisations to think about work and usage patterns, how their users interact with their computers and how needs may differ across the business.
It’s also important to set proper goals and expectations. What will project success look like? What systems need to be measured and managed? Are there any systems or processes that should be excluded from the power management process?

Key power management implementation considerations
Before starting a power management project, organisations need to consider what low power state will work best for them and which waking approach they will use. At Verdiem, we strongly recommend implementing Sleep as the primary low power state for computers.

Assuming that Sleep is the preferred low power state, there are two main ways to wake a system: by a scheduled event at the operating system level, or by Wake on LAN. Wake on LAN technology is a network-friendly approach that does not require any configuration by the IT department. It is also implemented without requiring any ports to be enabled – avoiding potential security risks.

Two common wake-related questions that you may want to consider are ‘How do you want to handle systems when users arrive in the morning?’ and ‘Do you need your systems to wake at times for IT purposes?’
In answer to the morning question, the most energy-efficient way to implement a low power state is to keep the computer in that state until the user wakes it up with a keyboard or mouse click. The other option is to wake the systems prior to users arriving. The key decision factor here is what level of user involvement you want in the power management process.

With regard to waking systems for routine maintenance, most IT updates and processes – such as software updates, virus scans or disk defragmentation - are scheduled to run in the middle of the night. With power management, the systems that used to be kept on 24x7 now only need to be awakened for these maintenance windows. Some power management solutions support the inclusion of maintenance windows in its policies. So, in your preparations for power management, make sure IT has the opportunity to map out the times they need the systems to be awake.

With proper preparation and planning, your power management solution can be fast, user friendly and benefit all levels of your organisation, from the energy and cost savings, to increased IT efficiency.

Drivegain saves £560 a year in fuel costs

DriveGain is an iPhone application that helps you save fuel as you drive (which I first mentioned a year ago). For one driver it has resulted in using 24% less fuel, which adds up to a saving of £560 a year (in UK prices).

DriveGain uses the iPhone’s GPS to calculate how efficiently a vehicle is being driven. It combines information about the rates of acceleration, driving smoothness and overall speed with the car specifications, giving the driver feedback on how they can reduce fuel consumption.

There’s also a free version that offers a miles-per-gallon (and presumably Kilometres per litre) reading and a JourneyScore out of 100 for each trip. You can buy other displays, such as the  Cost Meter and Fuel Savings Meter as add-ons.

The real-world fuel savings data from using Drivegain comes from a Dutch driver who has increased his mileage from one tank of fuel from 370 miles to 490 miles. Ed de Tollenaer said “To get these savings I just followed the audio feedback and the visual displays the app gave me. Changing your driving style requires breaking some old driving habits so having the app constantly giving me encouraging feedback helps a lot”.

 

Well it’s a great product from this London-based start-up company, formed in 2008, although it does currently rely on Apple products – primarily an iPhone. Other smart phones have now caught up.

But as I said when I first reported on the product, Drivegain is no doubt very good at helping you develop more fuel-efficient driving habits, but once you have the habit there’s no real need for the app.

If you don’t have an iPhone and want to save money and the planet, I would suggest you simply find out more about eco driving, from, for instance, ecodrive.org. I did.

GridKey delivers a stepping stone to UK smart grids

GridKey, the collaboration between Selex Galileo and Sentec, has announced the first delivery of its low voltage network monitoring system to Electricity North West (ENW) in the UK. ENW will be installing GridKey systems in one hundred substations as part of a Low Carbon Network Fund project. The substation monitoring system is seen as the first step to a smart grid.

Last September Sentec, the smart grid and smart metering specialist, announced its collaborating with Selex Galileo, which designs and manufactures sensors. GridKey is the result of that collaboration, with the low voltage (LV) monitoring solution based on Sentec’s Iris sensor technology.

GridKey provides continuous remote monitoring of substations. It can be retro-fitted without interrupting supply to customers and will fit most installations. It gives Distribution Network Operators (DNOs) more detailed information on the state of their LV grid so they can manage the network better.

ENW is installing GridKey as part of a Low Carbon Network Fund project. The £500 Fund was established by gas and electricity regulator Ofgem for DNOs to try out new technology and commercial arrangements to help them understand what they need to do to adapt to a low carbon economy.

 

We’re going to see a lot more of these collaborations, establishing new organisations to address smart grid requirements. They need extensive information and control systems to be in place to be effective, so its a huge opportunity for a whole range of suppliers of hardware and software. If they’re really successful such organisations will be floated away from their owners, which may well be what they have in mind in the first place.

It’s good to see that GridKey has a British pedigree. Sentec is Cambridge-based and Selex Galileo is now a UK/Italian firm. GridKey is based in Essex.

HP opens a technology renewal centre in Scotland

HP has announced the opening of a technology renewal centre in Erskine, Scotland. The centre will allow enterprise customers to acquire certified legacy HP products and participate in equipment re-use programmes, regardless of equipment type or manufacturer. The facility will renew old IT equipment that could otherwise be destined for a landfill.

The new facility provides customers with a range of IT asset management and reuse services focused on helping large business enterprises handle the life cycle of IT equipment. Renewal services are a key component to the centre’s operations, with IT equipment put through a process that includes reconditioning, testing and certifying back to original manufacturing standards before they are remarketed.

The facility is owned and operated by HP Financial Services, the company’s leasing and asset management subsidiary, which is apparently the second largest captive IT leasing company in the world, managing and remarketing more than 2.3 used computers each year. As customers deploy new technology solutions, HP Financial Services will remove and dismantle old or end-of-life equipment that no longer meets strategic needs.

 

HP, and other IT manufacturers, have always had enterprise asset management programmes that include taking back equipment at end-of-life. (They now also have obligations under European Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment – WEEE – legislation). What is evolving, as demonstrated by this facility, is the increased focus on renewing old equipment to get it back into the market. Re-use is by far the most environmentally sound action at product end-of-life.

This is going to increasingly be a focus area for IT companies to demonstrate their green credentials. How much equipment is taken back, from what sorts of customers and what proportion is refurbished for reuse?

To its credit, HP already provides some figures in its Global Citizens report:

• Hardware reuse programmes in 53 countries

• Hardware recycling programme in 49 countries

• 30,000 tonnes (3.8 million units) of hardware recovered for reuse and remarketing

The transparency is good, but there’s clearly a long way to go yet in remarketing and reuse programmes.

Energy Star loses support

According to a report in Business Week last week, some electronics manufacturers are threatening to leave the Energy Star scheme because recent changes have made it too costly.

The Energy Star energy efficiency labelling scheme is a joint program of the US Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy. Energy Star says that the labelling system helped save enough energy in 2010 in the US alone to avoid greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those from 33 million cars — while also cutting nearly $18bn from utility bills.

The main complaint that’s emerged is that products now have to be tested in independent laboratories. Previously they were self-certified by the manufacturers, but in 2010 an investigation from the US Government Accountability Office (GOA) concluded that the self-certification program was vulnerable to fraud and abuse. The GOA managed to obtain Energy Star certifications for 15 bogus products, including a gas-powered alarm clock. As a result the EPA no longer relies on an automated approval process.

But now the Consumer Electronics Association, which represents companies such as Apple and Sony, says that its members are re-evaluating whether it's worth participating. The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers and the Information Technology Industry Council (members include Dell and Texas Instruments) have also apparently complained.

 

I can imagine that some electrical and electronic equipment manufacturers, with smaller markets and cheaper products, may find the independent testing process arduous and expensive, but I don’t see what the IT companies can complain about. Most have been bending over backwards to be seen as greener than green, do they really want to go back to a system where the labels have been shown to have much less value? I can see the headlines now: ‘Dell opts out of energy efficient products’ – it doesn’t seem very likely.

Also, bear in mind that the Energy Star labelling has been extended to Europe through an agreement between the European Commission and the EPA. The EU Energy Star web site, which is managed by the European Commission, holds a database of products based on the US EPA list, with the addition of EU-registered models. The EU might well think twice about this association if it reverts to self-certification.

Energy Star labelling is used as a selling point for IT equipment, although maybe not as prominently as it should be, for which some blame should go to Energy Star and the manufacturers. But it is helping to improve energy efficiency over time as certification requirements become progressively more strict. All that will be lost if prominent IT suppliers withdraw from the scheme and it would be a black mark against the industry.

I would have hoped, even expected, that respected IT manufacturers such as Dell and HP would be actively campaigning for the labelling to stay as is. Let’s hope so.

Microsoft plans to be ‘carbon neutral’ next financial year

Microsoft has announced that from fiscal year 2013 (which starts on July 1 this year) the company will be carbon neutral across all its direct operations, including data centres, labs, travel and offices.

The company plans to make carbon awareness an element of every part of its business through an accountability model that makes all business units responsible for the carbon they generates.

To achieve it Microsoft is putting an internal price on carbon based on market pricing for renewable energy and carbon offsets. For emissions not eliminated through efficiency measures, Microsoft will purchase renewable energy and carbon offsets and charge the cost back to the business divisions.

The carbon price and charge-back model is designed to provide an economic incentive for business groups to reduce carbon emissions through efficiency measures and increased use of renewable energy. The operations impacted by the carbon price include data centres, software development labs, office buildings, and business travel.

There’s more detail in a white paper published by the company - Becoming Carbon Neutral: How Microsoft is Becoming Lean, Green, and Accountable.

 

Microsoft has been rethinking its plan to reduce carbon emissions after announcing disappointing progress in its CSR report published last October. The plan was that by mid 2012 the company would have reduced carbon emissions per unit of revenue by 30% compared with 2007. But the CSR report showed that emissions were up 16% in calendar 2010 and revenue up just 12% for the financial year to June 2011, which meant that emissions per unit of revenue took a step backwards.

There are two advantages to this new plan to achieve carbon neutrality. Firstly, its an absolute figure, not related to revenue, and its an absolute figure we ultimately have to achieve. Secondly, it puts responsibility directly in the hands of business divisions, so it is creating an awareness across the business at ground level.

The downside is that the company is talking about offsets, which are not the favourite way to do it for many people (including me). Offsets do not have a great reputation for achieving their objectives, i.e. reducing carbon emissions. And in this case it seems like a business cost that Microsoft’s divisions could potentially plan for and achieve through financial savings elsewhere.

It’s a commendable scheme, but to ensure it achieves its objectives of reducing emissions it would be better as an internal cap and trade scheme, i.e. the available offsets should be limited and reduced over time to achieve the real efficiency savings objectives, with departments having to bid against each other in auction to acquire the rights to offset. If a department doesn’t achieve carbon neutrality under that scheme then the head of the business unit goes.