DOE Announces $47 Million Grants for IT, Telecom Energy Efficiency Projects
The Department of Energy announced $47 million in stimulus grants for 14 projects to develop technologies to improve energy efficiency in the IT and telecommunications industries that use 120 billion kilowatt hours annually or 3 percent of U.S. electricity use. “The rapid growth of these industries has led to an increase in electricity use,” but improvements in energy efficiency can lead to significant energy and cost savings for them, Energy Secretary Steven Chu told reporters Wednesday.
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Without energy-efficiency improvements, the growth of the data-center industry would require adding at least two large power plants yearly, Chu said. “So we look at improvements in energy efficiency as one of the low-hanging fruits we can pluck.” The $47 million in federal money will be added to more than $70 million from business, he said.
The purposes of the federally funded projects will include making the core components of data and telecommunications centers, such as servers and networking equipment, more energy efficient, Chu said. The money also will go to developing technologies to minimize the power loss and heat generation that occurs when electricity moves through the “ever-growing number” of IT and telecommunications servers, he said. Also to be tackled are ways to cool gear used in IT and telecommunications more efficiently with less power than methods used now, he said.
Chu said the projects are expected to save more than 400 trillion BTUs a year, the energy used by 2 million homes. “By reducing energy use by the information technology and telecommunications industries, this funding will reduce operating costs, create hundreds of jobs and ensure that these sectors remain competitive,” he said. If the industry doesn’t improve efficiency, it will “face increasing costs and greenhouse gas emissions, along with challenges to the reliability of the electricity service.”
Companies chosen for the grant include IBM, HP, Yahoo, SeaMicro, Alcatel-Lucent, California Institute of Technology, Power Assure and Federspiel Control. Power Assure estimates that its new power management software, which regulates server energy use by turning servers off and on when needed, could reduce energy use 50 percent in data centers and large server farms, the DOE said. Federspiel said it’s developing a new cooling system that continually monitors and adjusts temperatures.