Utilities Are Beginning to Encourage Green IT
by Francine Hardaway on March 20th, 2008
Green IT is a big topic in the technology industry, especially in data centers that use a lot of electricity. In the past, this would be a problem for the utility industry, which used to encourage business to use all the power it needed, and was proud of its ability to supply it
All this is slowly changing. According to a survey by InfoTech Research,
some North American utility companies are so committed to Green IT that they are paying businesses to reduce energy waste.
Companies with leading programs include Avista, Pacific Gas and Electric, and Alliant. However, the leaders make up only 5% or less of the companies, and the rest are lagging.
Avista, in the Northwest, offers energy efficiency rebates for power management software purchases of $10-per-PC. Pacific Gas & Energy Company’s Virtualization & Server Consolidation Projects Initiative provides businesses with a credit of 8 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for the energy saved due to virtualization, and Alliant advances companies the capital for energy-savings projects. Most incentives from other utillity companies may include IT projects, but don’t specify them, or require pre-approval of a project before it starts.
Info-Tech says it applauds utilities that actively support energy reduction, and advises enterprise IT departments to consider taking advantage of such programs as part of their best practices in managing projects and life-cycle upgrades in their data centers.
Info-Tech Research Group’s 6+ minute podcast, “Going ‘Green’ - Hear Why and How It’s Important for Your Enterprise,” explores the awareness of green issues and the adoption of green technologies within the IT environment. (hat tip to Tekrati for this information.)
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