I’m getting caught up on some news from over the holidays (happy new year by the way!) and came across this two part interview with Mark Bramfitt, the former program manager for PG&E’s High Tech program which includes data center efficiency projects (found here: Part 1, Part 2). Mark has been very vocal over the years in spreading information on PG&E’s ground breaking programs in this area and has been a great ambassador to the high tech and utility industries alike on data center utility incentives.
EMI performed the process evaluation of the PG&E’s High Tech Program (which can be found here) and I got to know Mark initially through his support for my work with the EPA on the ENERGY STAR Computer Server specifications.
Scouring through the two interviews I found a number of interesting points from Mark.
On Barriers to Program Adoption:
In my discussions with utilities across the U.S., this is probably the single biggest barrier to program adoption – they can’t find firms who can do the calculations, or resources to appropriately evaluate and review them.
What has slowed us down, I think, is that the IT industry and IT managers had essentially no experience with utility efficiency programs three years ago. It simply has taken us far longer than we anticipated to get the utility partnership message out there to the IT community.
These two quotes emphasize the fact that there’s a gap of knowledge (and talent) between the utility industry and the high tech companies that equip and run data centers. On the utility front – there is a gap in knowledge about the IT industry. The fast pace of technological innovation and quick growth in this industry presents challenges in finding or developing the expertise to implement effective programs (including performing the necessary calculations and analysis). On the high tech company front – there is a gap in knowledge about how to identify and leverage these new programs and efficiently perform the analysis and calculations to receive the incentives. My conversations with industry members on both sides highlight these frustrations, and the ultimate success of data center efficiency programs will hinge on closing these gaps in the coming years.
New Opportunities
On the retrofit side, we’re seeing interest in air flow management measures as the hot spot, perhaps because customers are getting the message that the returns are great, and it is an easy way to extend the life and capacity of existing facilities.
Metering and monitoring systems lead people to make simple changes, and can directly measure energy savings in support of utility incentive programs. We also like that some systems are moving beyond just measurement into control of facility and IT equipment, and to the extent that they can do so, we can provide incentive funding to support implementation.
There is a lot of room for potential growth from the basic programs currently offered by utilities. Mark points out one of the areas of low hanging fruit is with air flow management. This can include simple efforts like blanking panels or more advanced efforts like switching to hot/cold aisle containment. The challenges here are in confirming the energy savings, which is where the expertise mentioned above is needed.
Metering and monitoring is always a hot topic of conversation in this industry. Future and current efforts for quantifying energy efficiency gains rely on access to quality data, so the implementation of better measurement and monitoring would be a big a boost to future energy efficiency projects. The challenge, again is quantifying concrete savings from these measures.
These two points bring up what I see as a main challenge to the utility industry in simply and reliably quantifying the energy savings from these measures so they can use incentives to drive these right behaviors. It’s a significant challenge and will take some creative thinking. Another of Mark’s points emphasizes the potential outcome of these challenges:
That being said, utilities in California are under tremendous pressure to deliver energy efficiency as cost effectively as possible, so some of the industry leadership activities undertaken by PG&E may have to be de-emphasized, and we may not be able to afford to develop new programs and services if they won’t deliver savings.
To get over this hurdle, the industry needs to think creatively on how to efficiently (i.e. cost effectively) justify incentives and programs that help drive the right behavior. There’s a large potential for energy savings in this industry, and utilities should have a role in driving these behaviors, we just have to continue to push to find effective models for doing this.
Future Growth of the Industry
PG&E is not seeing the level of new data center construction that we had in ’07 and ’08, but the collocation community tells me demand is exceeding supply by 3-to-1. They just can’t get financing to build new facilities.
This last point emphasizes that despite the credit crunch, demand remains high. Once some capital is freed up we should continue to see rapid growth of the industry and increased opportunities to effect change through intelligent incentives.
Tags: Challenges, Data Center, EMI, Energy Market Innovations, Incentive Programs, Opportunities, PG&E, Utilities
