Beyond Greener Data Centers

Thanks to the explosion in demand for processing power, most CIOs have noticed by now that they need more energy-efficient servers. There are limits to how much electric power a given facility can sustain.

Although 56 per cent of respondents to our survey said they don't monitor IT-related energy spending, 64 per cent are reducing, or have plans to reduce, the energy consumption of their servers. Almost as many say that at least occasionally they will purchase IT products that are energy-efficient or that are manufactured and distributed in a sustainable way. For PG&E's Lawicki, the push to reduce data center energy consumption is motivated not only by cost-her electricity bill is growing with her data center processing capacity-but also by emissions regulations.

The largest utility in California, PG&E has a mixed environmental record. A decade ago, its US$333 million settlement with residents of Hinkley, California, who accused the company of contaminating local groundwater was the basis for the movie Erin Brockovich. Today, though the company still has critics, PG&E has worked hard to position itself as a leader in low-emissions power distribution (over 50 per cent of its power comes from non-CO2 emitting sources, including nuclear and hydroelectric). PG&E also set a goal to make its offices, service centers, and other buildings "climate neutral" by 2009.

The company has also launched several programs designed to help customers reduce their energy consumption, including a rebate for businesses that install energy efficient equipment in their data centers and a "smart meter" program to measure patterns of residential power consumption. Prior to a recent server consolidation project Lawicki had her team measure the power consumption for each class server to obtain a benchmark. They measured their data center power consumption with a robotic dynamic thermal monitoring system that detects hot spots in the data center at different times of day. "This is how detailed you need to get in order to ensure you're doing it the right way," she says.

Lawicki also sees untapped potential for IT to reduce emissions by revamping PG&E's business operations, but she's still waiting for a groundswell of demand. "We're just waiting for these lines of business to come running in and say I want to be more green," she says. PG&E's business units can use IT to optimize anything from truck routes to the wire they buy for its environmental impact.

It's not necessarily easy. "We're going to have to do a lot of work," Lawicki adds. She anticipates, for instance, that PG&E's supply chain group will ask for IT tools that will help them analyze supply decisions "based on the carbon footprint we're leaving." That means going to software providers such as TK and asking for new features that support the additional data collection and analysis.

Analysts point to supply chain management, enterprise asset management and manufacturing systems controls as the top software categories that must evolve to meet the emerging demand for energy management and carbon emissions data. Meanwhile, according to Gartner, eight technologies are going to become critical to companies' sustainability efforts. These include applications for optimizing service and repair calls, as well as telecommunication and collaboration technologies that allow employees to work at home or reduce their travel.