- Chapter 3: Collaboration Is Key for Green IT
- IT Technology Vendors
- Data Center Design and Build Businesses
- Collaboration of Building Energy Management and IT Energy Management
- Energy Utilities
- Governments
- Collaboration Within Your Own Company
- Universities Collaborate
- The Green Grid Collaboration Agreements
- Collaboration and Carbon Trading
- IT Vendors and Collaboration
- Al Gore and Green Collaboration
- Chapter Summary and Conclusions
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
IT Vendors and Collaboration
In April 2008, IBM announced new energy-management software, an expansion of its energy certificates program, and an energy benchmark to help clients establish energy-efficiency goals, optimize for energy efficiency, and measure and verify its green IT progress across the enterprise. The offerings for energy measurement included IBM Active Energy Manager software to measure power usage of key elements of the data center, from IT systems to chilling and air-conditioning units; an expansion of IBM’s Energy Certificates program to 34 countries; and an online energy assessment benchmark.
Since launching Project Big Green in May 2007, IBM has already helped more than 2,000 clients implement green initiatives that have helped to reduce cost and environmental impact. Additionally, IBM has recycled more than one billion pounds of IT equipment removed from clients’ data centers. “Clients today are looking for ways to measure their green IT projects and have positive business results that can be documented and verified,” says Rich Lechner, vice president, Enterprise Systems, IBM. “Today’s announcements, which are based on IBM’s experience with thousands of clients, help them do just this as they transform to a new enterprise data center.”
Energy Manager Software
IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager‰ (AEM) tracks energy consumption in data centers and helps customers monitor power usage and make adjustments to improve efficiency and reduce costs. The new software enables IT managers to control—even set caps on—their energy use for servers, storage, and networking, as well as the air-conditioning and power management systems that keep the data center running. The software supports monitoring of devices that connect to select smart power strips that provide power to multiple devices.
Additionally, the software can be used with equipment from facility management providers. For example, the software can retrieve temperature and power information using SynapSense Corporation’s wireless sensors, which can be located virtually anywhere in the data center. It can also receive alerts and events related to power and cooling equipment through interaction with Liebert SiteScan from Emerson Network Power. The alerts can notify IT administrators about issues with facilities equipment, such as overheating, low battery power on uninterruptible power supply batteries, or other conditions that might keep IT equipment in a data center from running properly.
Global Significance of Energy-Efficiency Certificate Program
To help clients benchmark and improve the efficiency of their IT operations and reduce their environmental impact, IBM and Neuwing Energy have expanded the Energy-Efficiency Certificate (EEC) program to reach customers in 34 countries. This program enables clients to measure their energy usage while earning energy-efficiency certificates for reducing the energy used to run their data centers. The certificates earned—based on energy-use reduction verified by a certified third-party—provide a way for businesses to attain a certified measurement of their energy use reduction, a key emerging business metric. The certificates can be traded for cash on the growing energy-efficiency certificate market or otherwise retained to demonstrate reductions in energy use and associated CO2 emissions.
In addition to the United States, Canada, and Mexico, clients in the following countries can now apply for energy-efficiency certificates associated with improvement in IT: Ireland, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal, Luxembourg, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, India, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, and Japan.
“Establishing a worldwide energy certificates program with the help of IBM is important to clients around the globe who are dramatically improving the efficiency of their infrastructures to meet their environmental responsibility goals as opposed to simply buying renewable energy certificates,” said Matthew Rosenblum, CEO and president, Neuwing Energy. “This program gives clients the incentive to become more efficient at the source and helps reduce energy costs at the same time. We have already seen dramatic results from both utilities and Fortune 500 companies as they start to understand how productive this program is in keeping economic expansion growing while reducing energy costs.”
IBM has applied for EEC to document energy savings in its data center in Southbury, Connecticut. A data center thermal assessment was completed in late 2007 using the Mobile Measurement Tool. The assessment identified air flow modifications that allow the Southbury data center to turn off 18 computer room air-conditioning systems while maintaining current data center operations. The pending energy- efficiency certificates are expected to document a total of 1,600 megawatt hours of reduced electricity use annually.