By Barbara DePompa, 1105 Government Information Group Custom Media.
A heightened awareness of IT power consumption, the increasing use of high performance, high-density computing technologies and legislative mandates such as the economic stimulus plan are working to improve data center efficiency and driving greater energy conservation, government-wide.
Nowadays, technology plays a critical role in aiding government to cost-effectively improve energy and operational efficiency. The growth of servers and storage impacts power and cooling capacity. Also, network-intensive software and services are consuming ever more of government IT budgets. This is why public sector organizations have instituted green IT initiatives to track resource usage, carbon emissions and efficient utilization of resources such as power and cooling.
At the same time, there are new policies, along with technological solutions that can help federal audiences to conserve power, reduce cooling costs, maintain availability and support disaster recovery, while sustaining operations to meet mission goals. Some agencies are instituting a four-year (or longer) refresh cycle on computers. Others use only Energy Star rated monitors that go to sleep after ten minutes. New Energy Star power consumption ratings for servers will also help agencies deploy more efficient technologies. In all, federal agencies and departments are working to incorporate the following technological solutions to aid in achieving greater energy efficiency, including:
*Virtualization, consolidation and storage reduction;
*Green hardware and lifecycle management policies;
*Desktop and data center energy reduction practices;
*Print management; and
*Unified communications to reduce travel costs.
Perhaps the greatest impact on the migration to green computing this year, is the amount of technology spending for energy-related projects included in the recently signed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)
IDC, Framingham, Mass., forecasts $2.5 billion for IT projects within the federal sector, and $77.6 billion for energy sector projects, which IDC breaks down into the following categories:
*Smart grid, $8.6 billion;
*Renewable energy, $66 billion;
*Energy efficiency, $3 billion.
The ARRA smart grid investment focuses on deployment of smart appliances and other smart equipment, including electrical transmission and distribution systems, smart meters, the integration of hybrid and electric cars into a smart grid, and all of the supporting software and communications networks. Of the more than $2 billion tagged for federal IT expenses, news reports indicate the majority of funds ($990 million) will update the Social Security Administration’s data centers and IT systems, increasing automation in the claims processing area. Other big winners include the departments of State, Education, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs.
Separately, the federal government also reported in April that 13 of 22 federal agencies hit a required level of 95% purchasing of EPEAT computers, monitors, laptops and other electronics. To receive Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) certification, products must pass stringent measures for energy efficiency, reduction of toxic materials, recyclability, package efficiency and other environmental criteria. (Read more in the related feature article updating regulatory issues, on page s6.)
Also, the Green Grid, a global consortium of companies dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers, rolled out a new online tool in April 2009 to help North American data center managers determine how much outside air, otherwise known as free cooling, is available for individual data centers. Free cooling can help lower data center costs and extend the life of data center facilities as well. The Green Grid is also exploring different methods for measuring and reporting energy efficiency and data center productivity. Potential measurements of useful work in data centers, otherwise known as, “Proxies for Estimating Data Center Productivity,” are open for public comment. More information is available at www.thegreengrid.org.
What’s Ahead
To achieve a federally mandated 30% reduction in energy use by 2015, agencies will have to do more to overcome the challenges faced in managing ever-tightening budgets, incompatible technologies and changing priorities that have diverted focus from targeted conservation goals.
Industry observers, such as Frost and Sullivan, maintain federal institutions must invest in converged and integrated solutions that mesh previously separate facilities management and IT functions. In many ways, the technologies that enable convergence can also speed systems installation, reduce costs and change the way organizations view and manage electricity. At the same time, migrating from disparate, multiprotocol networks to a converged IP backbone would allow agencies to run and manage not only communication services, but building services as well, all on the same network infrastructure. For federal agencies constantly in search of ways to cut costs and do more with less, the ability to implement centrally controlled intelligent buildings offers great promise as a means to achieve both cost and energy reduction savings.
According to researchers at the U.S. Green Building Council, a 15 percent decrease in energy use at federal facilities could generate more than $650 million in annual savings and eliminate roughly 2.7 million tons of carbon in one year.
Equipped with a converged, highly secure network foundation, government agency facilities would be transformed into proactive intelligent buildings that operate more efficiently, increasing safety and security, and improving energy management. Solutions such as Cisco’s EnergyWise provides the framework that public sector organizations can use to create a control plane for management of all devices consuming energy in a building. Gaining visibility into energy consumption would allow federal agencies to better manage and charge back for energy resource usage.
Even before the president signed the latest ARRA stimulus package, federal agencies faced a deadline of October 2012 to install smart power meters on many federal buildings. That deadline is part of the Energy Policy Act (EPAct) of 2005 and the subsequent Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) that sets a target for the government to reduce its energy and other resource consumption by 30 percent by fiscal 2015.
Some federal organizations have devised plans or have already started to install smart meters and energy management systems. Recent news reports indicate that the Navy is planning to install 12,000 smart meters at 40,000 facilities worldwide to meet the 2012 goal. To meet the 2015 target, it will install an additional 18,000 meters with another 2,000 at Marine Corps facilities. GSA, meanwhile, which manages thousands of government buildings, started installing smart meters on its properties in 2002, including many of the large federal offices in Washington, D.C. The GSA has also been helping the city better manage its electrical distribution operations by reducing the use of power-hungry machinery during peak demand periods, among other strategies.
Industry watchers maintain that green IT solutions could have the same impact on an agency’s bottom line as upgrading power plants, improving heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems and using Energy Star equipment. Green IT offers savings in terms of the amount of energy needed to power the IT function of every federal building.