New green initiatives are pushing data centre companies in the European Union to take the lead in developing environmentally friendly technology. The economic crisis in 2008 gave an extra impulse to the trend, with reduced energy consumption leading to lower bills. Companies quickly realized that having good environmental credentials was good for marketing. The hostile economic climate turned out to be a catalyst for green information technology.

By moving business applications to cloud computing, large organizations can reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions 30 percent or more compared to running those apps on their own infrastructure, according to a study released by Microsoft, Accenture and WSP Environment & Energy. The study also finds that small businesses can garner substantially higher savings.

Energy efficient IT has always seemed like a no-brainer: Cut the energy used by your PCs, servers and data centres, and start saving money immediately. And despite a slower start than one might expect from a no-brainer, the third annual Energy Efficient IT report from CDW shows that the concept has finally sunk in.

Colleges are working to make their data centres “greener,” though power use by the facilities has dropped only slightly compared with last year, according to a new survey by CDW Government. Out of 152 college tech leaders surveyed by the technology company, 74% said their institutions are developing programs to routinely monitor and reduce the amount of energy consumed by their data centres. The previous year, only about half that number - 36% - responded in the same way.

VISI, the Minnesota-based data centre, managed hosting and cloud computing provider, was awarded Tier III Design Certification from Uptime Institute for their Eden Prairie, Minnesota facility. VISI is the first commercial data centre in Minnesota to receive the Tier III Design Certification from the Uptime Institute.

VISI's Eden Prairie Data Center will feature 18,000 sq ft of raised floor when completely built out and will be one of the largest data centres in Minnesota.

Source: San Francisco Gate

UK Grid, the Manchester-based IT hosting business, has launched a renewables arm to win business from other data centre providers looking to offset their carbon production.

From data centres down to USB keys, if it involves storage, I'll be looking at it. The costs of conforming to the Carbon Reduction Commitment should not significantly affect UK data centre companies, a data centre chief has said. The scheme, now called the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, adds costs to businesses that consume large amounts of electricity, such as data centres. Industry figures have spoken out against it; Kate Craig-Wood, managing director of hosting company Memset, has written on her blog that the CRC "threatens to impede growth and innovation in the data centre industry".

Emerson Network Power has said it has cracked the problem limiting the electrical load capacity and international competitiveness of UK data centres, extending the capacity of the data centres by 20%.

A controversial scheme to reduce carbon emissions that affects operators of large data centres has been pushed back after business complained it was too complex. The government has delayed the second phase of its CRC Energy Efficiency scheme, when the cap on carbon emissions will be introduced, by one year until 2013.

Emcor Group has been awarded a contract to install energy efficient air handling systems at AT&T's data centre in California. The firm's subsidiary Emcor Services Mesa Energy Systems will fit an air-cooled chilled water system within the facility.

This system will help to maximise energy use while boosting the data centre's response capability. Emcor will replace eight 300-tonne chillers already on the site with its new, greener models.

Source: Comms Express