Cable Operators Target Energy Efficiency at Own Facilities With New Standards
Major U.S. cable operators, looking to make their facilities more energy efficient so it costs less to power them and equipment lasts longer (CD July 24 p12), have two new guides from the industry’s technical consortium for backend facilities. The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers Tuesday released its first two standards for energy efficiency of hubs and headends which operators use to connect their larger networks and Internet backbones to regional cable systems. SCTE 184 is a recommended practice for how to locate such facilities and keep them running when commercial power goes out, and SCTE 186 is a specification for ventilation of such buildings and data centers, and ways to locate racks of equipment.
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Among the operators that helped design the standards through executives’ participation in SCTE’s Sustainability Management Subcommittee (SMS) that devised them are Bright House Networks, Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications, Suddenlink and Time Warner Cable, industry officials told us. The standards can be used to update existing operations or build new ones, and can guide issuance of requests for proposals from vendors, SCTE Senior Director Derek DiGiacomo said. The sustainability subcommittee is working on two forthcoming standards to guide the partial shutdown of idle equipment like servers, and a way to measure efficiency through an item’s physical size and capacity, he said. SCTE 184 and 186 are “going to be part of business practice going forward, because in particular the vendors and the MSOs are asking what are we going to do to address energy needs,” DiGiacomo said of multiple system operators and their suppliers. “They are going to be implementing it full force,” he said of companies including Comcast and Time Warner Cable. “It really is supporting a good business model."
Time Warner Cable will try to implement the two new standards “as those opportunities come up” to retrofit operations, a spokesman said. “We are kind of practicing what we preach.” There’s not a large number of existing hubs and headends that are being renovated or expanded, “but that is kind of routine -- there is always some number that work is being done on,” he said. “There’s an ongoing opportunity to implement some of these standards.” Time Warner Cable Vice President Dan Cooper is SMS chairman. “By establishing standards that can reduce consumption in critical facilities, we're laying the foundation for real, immediate returns for the industry as well as more comprehensive energy approaches in the near future,” he said in an SCTE news release Tuesday (http://xrl.us/bnivj5). Cox “is actively involved in discussions internally, with SCTE and other organizations, as well as our equipment vendors to help drive more efficient energy use within our company and the industry at large,” a spokesman said. “This ultimately helps optimize provider operational costs and complements our broader Cox Conserves program to encourage better environmental stewardship of the communities we serve.” Other operators with executives on SMS had no comment.
The 184 standard takes a page from SCTE’s renewable energy testbed that DiGiacomo runs at the organization’s Exton, Pa., office, he said. It’s about “integrating a fuel cell approach, solar panel integration when appropriate, and other things like renewable energy batteries that would marry the two in the case of SCTE’s example.” The practice has recommendations for the availability of commercial power supply, and suggests that “critical facilities” not be built at elevations above 10,000 feet or next to highways, DiGiacomo said. “Generally when you build a critical facility, you don’t want to place it in harm’s way.” Recommendations (http://xrl.us/bnivxb) include not restricting the flow of air through buildings, he said.
The spec talks about how to fill facilities with racks in ways that are conducive to air flow. The buildings don’t need to be kept at nearly freezing temperatures, and an operating temperature of 21 to 71 degrees Celsius (69.8-158 degrees Fahrenheit) is recommended. “For a long time a critical facility operator would tend to believe that you needed to keep this place like a meat locker in order to prevent failure,” but research has shown “that’s not the case,” DiGiacomo said. Air flow is a “big” consideration “in ensuring that all equipment will have intake of cool air from the front and exhaust out the rear,” he said of the spec (http://xrl.us/bnivxh).
"The cable community really has a starting point of a playbook in terms of managing energy consumption and costs,” DiGiacomo said. “This is really part of a series of things we want to produce.” SMS 004, which may be the next standard finished by the committee, is meant to be a benchmark of energy use and equipment density, accounting for the ability to enter a sleep state when idle and processing power and size, DiGiacomo said. The forthcoming SMS 003 adaptive power systems interface specification is for internal cable gear that can partly power down when not needed, he said. “Instead of having an on or off state as far as power goes, to be able to vary the consumption based on the load” of usage is a goal, he said: “That would allow us to do a number of things, save costs, and also prolong backup power in the event of having to shed load” if the utility supplying the facility has a power outage.