DOE Invests $47 Million to Make IT and Communications More Energy Efficient

While the U.S. is justifiably proud of its leadership role in the information technology (IT) and communications technology sectors, the astounding growth of those sectors has turned the data center industry into an energy hog. The two sectors now chew up 3% of the electricity produced in the country and, while that percentage may not sound like much, it's the equivalent of 120 billion kW hours of power. Improved efficiencies and conservation are important in their own right, but are doubly important because IT and communications technology are foundations of the developing Smart Grid. The Energy Department's investment makes perfect sense.

The DOE has awarded $47 million in Recovery Act stimulus money to develop ways to improve energy efficiency in the flourishing information technology and communications technology sectors. Because the data center industry is growing at such an astonishing rate and consumes as much power as it does, improved energy efficiency can produce significant energy and cost savings well into the future, the agency says.

The $47 million will help fund 14 projects throughout the country for research, development and demonstration projects in three primary areas:

·         Equipment and software: The projects will concentrate on core elements of a data or telecommunications center, including services and networking equipment, as well as software to optimize energy use.

·         Power supply chain: These projects will develop ways to minimize power loss and heat generation from the growing number of server-based IT and communications systems.

·         Cooling: This conservation effort will focus on ways to cool equipment used in IT and telecommunications more efficiently and will less electricity than methods used now.

The DOE money will be matched by more than $70 million in private investments for a total project fund of more than $115 million. Grants range in size from $222,000 to the big winner, Yahoo! Inc., which will receive $9.9 million for its work in the cooling category.

The companies selected for awards include: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center ($3.9 million), Alcatel-Lucent, Bell Labs ($2.1 million), SeaMicro Inc. ($9.3 million), California Institute of Technology ($300,000), Lineage Power Corporation ($2.4 million), BAE Systems ($222,000), Power Assure, Inc. ($5 million), Hewlett-Packard Company ($7.4 million), Columbia University ($2.8 million), Federspiel Controls, Inc. ($584,000), Edison Materials Technology Center ($2.8 million), and Yahoo ($9.9 million). Some recipients are involved in more than one project category.

One of the recipients, Power Assure, Inc., estimates that its new power management software could cut energy consumption in data centers and large server farms by 50%. And Federspiel Controls is working on a new dynamic cooling system to curb costs. The company says the static cooling systems used now eat up 25% of the energy used in a data center.

"These Recovery Act projects will improve the efficiency of a strong and growing sector of the American economy. By reducing energy use and energy costs for the IT and telecommunications industries, this funding will help create jobs and ensure the sector remains competitive," Energy Secretary Steven Chu said.

Without significant gains in energy efficiency for IT and communications, the data center industry would need two new large power plants every year just to keep up with its accelerating growth, DOE says.

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Read more ...

   DOE announcement

   Smart Grid Stimulus channel on SGN

   Energy Efficiency resources on SGN

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