Reduce energy waste and expense, while protecting the earth’s environment with the Empower Edge Program

Regardless of the business you operate, controlling and cutting costs is important for success. Reducing energy use and increasing energy efficiency is a proven strategy for cutting and controlling costs with good returns.

Even with good returns, energy waste is still prevalent throughout organizations. Consider that:

• A 400% variation in energy use intensity of buildings in the United States exists that is not explained by age, technology, hours, size or climate.
• Little improvement of overall energy consumption has been seen although building components are 30% more efficient since 1980.
• Oversizing building fan systems, on average, occurs by 60%.
• Most chillers are oversized by 50–200%.

Unfortunately, capturing energy waste has been hampered by a lack of focus on energy management. Too often energy management is characterized as:

• Decentralized
• Poorly-coordinated
• Focused on paying bills & running the powerhouse
• Reactive
• Undervalued
• Considered capital intensive

Organizations that have adopted effective energy management strategies and built successful energy programs have had different results. Consider the following:

• Ford Motor Company has saved over $75 million through effective energy management.
• USAA Real Estate has realized a 5% annual energy savings and increased the asset value of a California building by $1.5 million due to energy efficiency upgrades.
• Eastman Kodak saved more than $8.6 million in operating costs in 2002 from its energy management efforts.
• Hines estimates the difference in operational costs between its energy efficient buildings and inefficient buildings at more than $13 million.
• Fairfax County Public Schools estimates an annual energy savings of $4.5 million from energy efficiency improvements.

The value of strong energy management as a proxy for overall organizational management is increasingly recognized by financial analysts. Recent studies by Innovest Strategic Value Advisors found that leaders in energy management achieved superior stock and financial performance over laggards in energy management.

Whether you own your building or are a tenant, you typically need lighting, heating, air conditioning, power for office equipment, and other services to stay in business. There are a lot of resources available to help you become more energy efficient in your small business – including our own company, Empower Energy Technology.

Contact us today and learn how you can improve your company’s financial performance by reducing energy waste and energy costs, while protecting the earth’s environment.

In most organizations, many elements of the critical facilities infrastructure are not monitored, and those that are monitored may not talk to each other. It’s impossible to see the big picture, to correlate events across the power system, or to drill into detail for quick diagnosis and action. What is needed is a framework to integrate and analyze data from all power equipment — and the tools to determine appropriate action.

PowerChain™ Management solutions from Eaton and Empower Energy Technology focus on the power system as a strategic, integrated asset. Take a closer look at how you can better manage your energy asset. (download a larger version of the above chart – 7.5mb)

Entry level metering energy management

This is a flexible, low-cost metering solution for energy management. Various meters feed data through a Web-enabled gateway, providing a complete solution for many smaller campuses or businesses.

Metering energy management with power quality

Understanding your power quality is often the next layer in an energy management plan. By adding power metering to your system, you can identify power quality anomalies such as harmonic, voltage or current distortion, enabling you to further understand your power system.

Energy management with advanced power quality

Eaton’s top-tier solution includes advanced power quality and energy monitoring capabilities, including Web-based tools and graphics to develop an energy baseline. By adding advanced power quality to your solution, you can perform ITIC diagnostics, capture waveforms, trend data and more. In addition, the high-speed sampling rate accurately detects fast transients, allowing for extensive diagnostics of power quality.

Addition to any sized solution

Power Xpert Software and Power Xpert Reporting

The addition of a software and/or reporting system allows you to easily identify energy-saving opportunities throughout your buildings and campuses, worldwide. You can create a baseline for one facility or all facilities. You can contrast and compare energy usage throughout your organization. This provides the detailed information you need in the short term and the long term to identify energy, cost saving and power quality enhancement opportunities, through control, monitoring and management of your power systems.

To learn more and how Empower Energy Technology can help your company save money and energy, call 404.681.3270 or email Mark Bell at mbell@empoweret.com.

Achieve 30% Reduction in Data Center Power Cost in 5 Realistic Steps

Yes, it’s very likely that you’re spending 30-50% too much to power your data center! The data center can be a “power pig” because everything that lives in the data center loves energy. Servers, storage, racks of network gear, PDUs, cooling and everything else needed to support your IT platform needs power. All of that power usage produces another by-product: heat. For every $1 of power to make 1 therm of heat, you spend $2 of power to remove 1 therm of heat! It’s a cost cyclone, but you can control it with these 5 realistic steps:

1. Unplug Unused Hardware This may seem overly simplistic, however, there’s a reason that it’s in the #1 spot. The power draw from unused and under-utilized hardware can represent up to 10% of data center power usage.
2. Reduce Your Carbon Footprint through Consolidation and Virtualization- The data center is filled with physical assets. Servers, racks, storage, network devices, power/cooling systems- all of these physical systems are usually logically tied to a single use. What happens to your power requirements if you combine many logical processes onto few physical devices?
3. Implement Energy Management Tools- The savings associated with efficient power distribution and management within the datacenter offers excellent return on investment. Smart Energy Management allows IT systems to meter power usage and provide peak power only when needed.
4. Adopt Cooling Best Practices- 30-60% of all power cost in the data center is directly attributed to cooling equipment. By utilizing high-efficiency cooling equipment and employing best data center cooling practices (such as hot /cold aisles), the energy costs associated with cooling can be reduced by as much as 25%!
5. Conduct and Energy Audit- Easy opportunities for energy savings could be right at hand. An energy expert can rapidly audit your data center and assess your energy efficiency and compared to industry benchmarks. By identifying gaps in energy efficiency, you can prioritize your investment to maximize your power cost savings.

Reducing your power footprint isn’t just eco-responsibility: it’s good business. By implementing these 5 steps, you can save at least 30% on your power bill for your data center. You can also operate at greater efficiency with better reliability. When good business and eco-responsibility merge, we all win.

Let Empower Energy help your company improve energy efficiency and reduce power costs in your data center. Contact Mark Bell at 404.681.3270 x302 or email to mbell@empoweret.com.

Getting Greener, and Monitoring More

According to a recent study by AFCOM, the largest association for data center professionals, data centers are making progress on energy efficiency, but a large percentage of green initiatives remain informal and a significant number of data center operators admit to procrastinating on efficiency measures. The good news: more data centers are measuring their energy usage and monitoring their data center operations.

The survey found that 71.3 percent of respondents are actively engaged in “greening” initiatives, but that only 42 percent of those had a formal program in place. What steps are they taking?

• 61 percent are using less power in their data centers
• 51 percent report implementing cooling efficiency strategies
• 12 percent report significant savings in water usage

Government data centers are lagging the private sector, according to the AFCOM survey, which found 62 percent had greening programs, but just 36 percent had formal initiatives.

Data center operators report a variety of obstacles to implementing energy efficiency strategies. Thirty nine percent reported not having enough money in their budget to purchase more energy-efficient equipment, while 29.6 percent blamed procrastination, saying they were “paying lip service” to the issues while not moving ahead with efficiency projects. Another 22 percent said they have not been able to get a clear commitment from management.

Let Empower Energy help you green your data center. Contact Mark Bell to learn more. Call 404.681.3270 x302 or email to mbell@empoweret.com.

Does your company have an energy management plan? Empower can assist you with an energy audit to help reduce energy costs and compliance with corporate or regulatory goals and objectives.

Energy audits are comprehensive evaluations of the actual performance of your energy using systems and equipment compared against the designed performance level or the industry best practice. The difference between observed performance and “best practice” is the potential for energy and cost savings. Conducting energy audits is vital to a strong energy management program; without audits it is difficult to continuously improve energy efficiency and demonstrate savings.

Energy audits help your business to:

• Identify actions for improving energy performance;
• Prioritize projects; and
• Track progress.

A 2009 study conducted by Georgia Tech distilled 19 separate reports published across the region over the past 12 years. It found that better use of energy-efficient products could bring consumption 9 percent below the levels now projected for 2020. It also found that the South has been one of the last regions in the country to embrace energy efficiency programs and to foster a culture where consumers value energy efficiency. The South — which the study defines as a 16-state area that extends from Texas to Maryland — accounts for 44 percent of the nation’s total energy consumption. That’s significantly more than the region’s population share, which hovers around 37 percent.

Regular business energy audits are most effective when they are part of a strategic corporate energy management program. Let’s get started on your energy management plan. Contact Empower to learn more. Call Mark Bell at 404.681.3270 x302 or email at mbell@empoweret.com.

Wright Line's Paramount enclosure with integrated HCS

Wright Line’s Heat Containment System (HCS) is a simple, scalable and low cost solution to cool up to 25kW or more per enclosure without the expense of adding supplemental CRAC units to your data center. This patented technology is available on Wright Line’s Paramount and Vantage S2 enclosure systems and can also be field retrofitted to most manufacturers’ enclosures. The HCS contains and directs the heat exhaust of your IT equipment through the chimney that is attached to the top rear of the enclosure. The hot air is then ducted to your existing CRAC units through the plenum ceiling or high air returns.

Wright Line’s HCS is:

• Scalable – It can be adapted to existing infrastructures to increase rack utilization as your capacity demands grow
• Predictable – It separates hot exhaust air and cold supply air; dramatically increasing the reliability of the data center
• Efficient – Allowing hotter air to return directly to the CRACs, increasing their efficiency by operating at a higher Delta T (ΔT). The use of air-side economizers, variable speed fans and heat recovery also increase performance
• Reliable – It extends existing cooling capacity throughout the data center; freeing up stranded assets and lowering operational costs
• Flexible – It does not require you to alter existing enclosure locations and is also field-installable on third-party enclosures

At Wright Line and Empower, we understand how air works in the data center. Unlike other approaches that simply insert more fans in the enclosure or utilize spot cooling devices in the row, our Paramount and Vantage S2 enclosure systems feature a modular design that addresses air volume, air direction and heat exhaust within the enclosure. As your applications grow or you consolidate servers, cooling capacity can be increased simply by modifying the doors, side panels and tops of your enclosure system. The base enclosure remains the same, lowering your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

Converting existing enclosures to the HCS allows you to eliminate the incremental capital expense associated with having to add more CRAC units or other supplemental cooling. The HCS manages the hot air exhaust, which prevents mixing, thereby allowing the available cooling already produced by your AC units, to be used much more efficiently. Optional fans eliminate the issue of backflow from a pressurized plenum, generally associated with passive-only systems.

Download the brochure: Wright Line Airflow Management – Click here.  To learn more about how the Wright Line HCS can help your data center, contact Mark Bell at 404.681.3270 or email to mbell@empoweret.com.  Below is a video on the Wright Line HCS: