Energy Czars Hot Commodities
Data center managers have the technologies at their disposal that can cut their energy consumption by nearly 50% and reduce associated greenhouse gas emissions by an amount equal to taking 8 million cars off the road, according to GreenerComputing, citing the Data Center Demonstration Project. According to the report, the new research, which was launched by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories, is a response to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Report to Congress on Server Data Center Energy Efficiency, which estimated that electricity use in the IT sector more than doubled between 2000 and 2006, and could double again by 2011.
The issue of data center efficiency is garnering more attention as companies face mounting pressure to cut back on spending. Today, energy efficiency is not just an environmental concern - it’s a profitability issue with shareholder implications. That’s because the massive energy-gobbling data centers that hold racks of mission-critical equipment are costly to maintain.
As a result, demand is intensifying for operations professionals with the expertise to address energy concerns. Executive search firm, A.E. Feldman, has assembled a team of industry veterans currently working with a growing number of corporations with large data centers to address this issue. A.E. Feldman is assisting these corporations in implementing the strategic role of “Energy Czar” within their organization, and to identify and place qualified professionals who can design and implement initiatives for maximizing energy efficiency.
The largest consumer of energy is the data center. Data center usage of energy has doubled from 2000-2005 and continues to grow. Energy costs are increasing by 16% every year, while greenhouse gas emissions from data centers are due to pass those of all airlines by 2020, according to a study conducted by McKinsey & Company and The Uptime institute.
Now, a year and a half of research compiled in the Data Center Demonstration Project found that retrofitted legacy data centers can become nearly as energy efficient as new facilities. The project, which studied energy-saving technologies at 17 data centers in order to test the feasibility of EPA recommendations issued last year, finds that current technologies can easily achieve an EPA scenario which would reduce energy consumption by up to 45%.
GreenerComputing quotes Andrew Fanara, Head of the EPA’s Energy Star program, as saying, “We hope that in the end, or in the near term, that we’ll have more folks realize they can pursue some of these aggressive scenarios.”
A recent joint study by McKinsey and the Uptime Institute advises calls for the creation of a new C-level position: Energy Czar - responsible for monitoring the efficiency and performance of a company’s entire IT department. The study recommends that Energy Czars be mandated with doubling IT energy efficiency by 2012. This new position would report to the CIO, who in turn would be held accountable for datacenter expenses and operations.
“Energy efficiency must be made a priority in the board room for the potential savings alone,” says Fred Palmer, Founder and Head of the Palmer Group, an organization that focuses on best practices in technology. “When it comes to energy efficiency, the CIO must be held accountable. And that has to come from the top,” he adds.
A number of leading companies with large data centers have experts on their boards to strategize and develop energy saving measures – Sun and Yahoo! to name just two. Many more corporations, including Microsoft and IBM have already begun to focus on energy efficiency initiatives. For example, IBM has implemented new software at the company designed to measure power consumption throughout all parts of a data center, allowing managers to monitor and make adjustments to reduce demand, reports GreenerComputing.
Right now, A.E. Feldman is one step ahead of this growing trend. The firm’s Energy Division is currently working with a number of firms to identify and place qualified professionals who can design and implement strategies for maximizing energy efficiency. For more information about these issues or other job opportunities related to energy, sustainables or green technology contact A.E. Feldman’s Energy Team here.
