Verizon slashes data center energy consumption

Hands down, one of the biggest contributors to data center energy consumption is the explosion of mobile phone and smart phone usage. That's because all these mobile gadgets to which we have become addicted connect through massive telecommunications data centers. That's why I took notice of an announced from carrier Verizon, which is claiming dramatic energy consumption reductions at 24 data centers as the result of using technology from Vigilent.

Here's what Verizon has managed:

• It was able to turn off approximately 40 percent of the cooling technology at each of the data centers, within two days of deploying the Vigilent system. That has saved roughly 55 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually.
• It has decreased the average temperature in its data centers by 2 degrees Fahrenheit, and evened out temperature fluctuations.

These actions have reduced Verizon's greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 66 million pounds on an annual basis, according to the company's calculations. Overall, Verizon reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 297.5 million pounds in 2010, so that gives you an idea of the impact of this technology. The critical thing for the technology types reading this post is that the Vigilent system didn't mess with reliability.

Noted Mark Capurso, director of national technical operations at Verizon:

"Vigilient energy management systems have reduced cooling consumption by more than 40 percent as well as provided important safeguards that help improve our uptime. This combination of energy savings and improved efficiencies goes a long way toward helping meet Verizon's goal of improving its carbon efficiency by 15 percent this year."

Verizon plans additional Vigilent installations in more of its data centers.

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com