Tech companies set goals for energy efficiency
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(InfoWorld) - A group of some of the biggest technology companies said they've committed to a plan to improve the power efficiency of equipment they make and use. The Climate Savers Computing Initiative , which includes companies such as Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc., aims to improve the efficiency of power sources for computers and servers and encourage end users to take advantage of underused power management techniques. Only about 50 percent of the power that leaves a power outlet reaches a PC, because inefficient power cords leak energy, Google's Senior Vice President of Operations, Urs Holzle said Tuesday during a press conference to announce the program. Climate Savers has defined a series of standards for power supply efficiency in servers and PCs that it suggests members adopt between now and July 2010. By 2010, the Climate Savers standard will define a power supply that is above 95 percent efficient, Holzle said. The program asks manufacturing members to build products to the standard and companies to pledge to buy products that have the improved power supplies. The improvement doesn't require the development of new technologies. "This is all do-able today with technology we have and know," Holzle said. The reason that vendors haven't deployed such efficient power cords is because they cost more, said Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's digital enterprise group. A PC with a more efficient power cord would cost around US$20 more and a server an additional $30, he said. To address that price premium, Climate Savers is encouraging energy companies to issue rebates to users that buy products with the more efficient power supplies. Over time that cost premium is expected to drop with volume production, Gelsinger said. In addition, end users will save on their energy bills, also helping to offset the cost, he noted. Another component of Climate Savers is general education and encouragement for end users to take advantage of power management mechanisms that are typically built into existing PCs. "Ninety percent of PCs are capable but aren't utilizing power management techniques," Gelsinger said. "We want to drive IT policy in enterprises," he said. Improving power supply efficiencies and the use of power management techniques along the timeline Climate Savers has described would reduce global carbon emissions from the operation of computers by 54 million tons per year. It would save 62 billion kilowatt hours of energy in 2010, worth around $5.5 billion in energy costs, the group said. In its own data centers, most of Google's servers already have power supplies that comply with the Climate Savers standards for 2008 and 2009, Holzle said. Google began investing in the more expensive supplies because "it's worth spending a bit more on the power supply to save on the energy bill," he said. He defended Google's overall carbon footprint, despite questions about company jets that are hard on the environment. He pointed to the solar power used at the company's headquarters and incentives for employees to buy hybrid cars. In addition, he hinted at future energy-saving programs that the company plans to announce soon. Although Holzle said he knows Google's carbon footprint, he declined to share it. Other companies that are already part of the program include Yahoo Inc., Hitachi Ltd., eBay Inc., Advanced Micro Devices Inc., NEC Corp., Red Hat Inc., Lenovo Group Ltd., Unisys Corp. and the Linux Foundation.
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Two Silicon Valley firms show energy-efficient practicies in their own facilities.
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A coalition of technology companies and environmental groups led by Google Inc. and Intel Corp. launched an initiative Tuesday to conserve electricity and curb global warming emissions by making the world's computers and servers more energy-efficient.
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Sun has a laudable vision of the future of utility computing, where organisations with extra processing power can sell it back to a computing grid in the same manner that homes with solar panels can sell power back to the electrical power grid.
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Google, Intel, Microsoft, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard pledged this week to develop and use more energy-efficient computers and computer components.
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Technology firms and gadget lovers are urged to think more about the environment as new regulations come into force.
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Google is calling on the computer industry to create a simpler and more efficient power supply standard.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S Department of Energy (DOE) is stressing incentives over regulations to improve the energy efficiency of datacenters. The DOE's office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) gathered the top technology companies in Silicon Valley Wednesday to promote collaboration on strategies to improve overall energy efficiency.Â Datacenter energy issuesÂ are a growing concern for businesses and users as computers get more powerful, and the cost of running them and keeping them cool continues to increase. Technology vendors represented at the forum, including rival chip makers Advanced Micro Devices and Intel, along with server vendors such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, andÂ Sun Microsystems, have each been developing more energy-efficient products. But they and the DOE representatives acknowledged that datacenter energy usage needs to be addressed holistically. The DOE can be a resource to the industry, not a regulator requiring datacenters to meet energy efficiency goals, said Andy Karsner, head of the EERE program. "I donât know that right now thereâs a dramatic need for a regulatory move, particularly when you have the leaders of the industryâ¦coming here with a sense of purpose,â said Karsner. Industry representatives said they work independently on improving the energy efficiency of individual products but that the federal government could provide tax credits, other financial incentives, or other resources to enhance overall energy efficiency. "AMD and Intel keep doing their best to improve the performance [of processors], but the CPU is only half the story.â said Kris Singh, director of strategic platform technology programs at AMD, which hosted the daylong energy conference at its headquarters in Sunnyvale, California. Because this was the first meeting of what the DOE called a "tech industry working group," no specific recommendations were made and the schedule for future work remained open. The DOE can fund research that individual product makers can't fund to look at how different components could work better together, said David Rodgers, acting deputy assistant secretary of EERE. "A hardware company might improve theÂ energy efficiency of a blade serverÂ and another company might improve the energy efficiency of a transformer to convert AC to DC. Right now very few people are doing research on how to integrate those two together," said Rodgers. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sponsors theÂ Energy Star programÂ rating the energy efficiency of home appliances such as refrigerators and air conditioners and some commercial equipment. But some participants in the working group are skeptical that a comparable program could be applied to datacenters. âIâm not sure about that," said Roger Schmidt, chief thermal architect at IBM. Because datacenters are much more complex with components from different manufacturers, it'd be hard to develop one Energy Star rating everyone would agree upon. "What if [the rating] is bad, what do you do? Who are you going to point the finger to?â Schmidt asked.
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Effort is part of industrywide movement to bring the brighter, energy-efficient screens to the mass market.
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Green tech financiers share tips for spotting sustainable startups.
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(InfoWorld) - The IT industry's thirst for energy is growing exponentially, far outpacing the supply of reliable, clean power. Now a group of leading IT firms has banded together to try to head off an impending energy crisis in the datacenter. Eleven enterprise heavyweights including Microsoft, IBM, Sun, HP, Intel, AMD, Rackable Systems, and VMWare announced Monday that they have formed a non-profit group called The Green Grid to drive new metrics, technology standards, and best practices for curbing power consumption. Robust growth in the IT sector and in companies' use of technology is leading to an acute power shortage, according to analyst firm Gartner. Half the worldâs datacenters will run out of power by the end of 2008, Gartner estimates. That means companies face swelling utility bills as they struggle to keep their servers cool and humming. Many of the companies participating in The Green Grid are individually developing energy-efficient technologies. However, joining forces to tackle the power-consumption problem holistically is a must, according to Green Grid board member Bruce Shaw, director of worldwide commercial and enterprise marketing at AMD. "No one player owns the kingdom. It's not just a processor problem. It's not just a server problem. It's not just a memory problem. Everyone in the ecosystem needs to be involved." By working together, Green Grid companies can develop ways for their respective greener technologies to "hook into one another," thus increasing their overall effectiveness, Shaw said. The consortium started work last April, with representatives for AMD, Sun, IBM, and HP getting the ball rolling. Not surprisingly, there have been challenges from the out start, including concerns about intellectual property and developing a standard way to measure power consumption   "Do you measure by performance per watt? Per dollar? Per thread? Something different?" said Green Grid boar member Colette LaForce, vice president of marketing at Rackable Systems.Â
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A handful of technology companies plan to announce that they are forming a consortium to accelerate utilitylike grid computing in the corporate world.
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Advanced Micro DevicesÂ is investing $7.5 million in energy-efficient chip company Transmeta, which has beenÂ battling falling revenueÂ and widening losses.
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The PC industry is about to get the first update to the Energy Star specifications in more than a decade as home gadgets continue to suck down the juice.Photos: PC stands for power consumption
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SAN FRANCISCO/LAS VEGAS  - The world's major  technology companies are trying to convince consumers they need  an expensive, digitally connected home with the latest  high-tech gadgets.
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The manufacturing technology can result in faster chips without increasing power requirements, say the companies. By Darrell Dunn.
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Blog: IBM's Venture Capital Group is placing its own bets in clean tech in energy efficiency and water conservation.