DOE, industry commit to greener data centers
The department and the Green Grid, a consortium of IT companies, signed an MOU to implement energy management programs and adopt clean energy technologies.
The Energy Department and a consortium of information technology companies want to start making data centers more environmentally efficient.The agency and the Green Grid have signed a memorandum of understanding to get data centers worldwide to implement energy-management programs and adopt clean-energy technologies.In addition, the organizations could collaborate on developing a common set of metrics and tools, and develop a Web site so businesses can access those tools. The partnership may also train personnel to conduct energy-saving assessments and point research and development in a direction that would make data center operations more efficient.Data centers represent an important part of the information and economy, and joining forces with the Green Grid puts us on a path to identify and build the necessary tools for thousands of data centers to more easily capture energy savings, said Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Alexander Karsner.The Green Grid includes representatives from IT companies such as AMD, Microsoft, Dell, Sun Microsystems, IBM and Intel.