With heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems using more building energy use than lighting and IT combined, they can have a major impact when it comes to how sustainable a building is. This is where innovative HVAC start-ups like Ice Energy, Optimum Energy, and Chromasun come in, with technology designed to significantly reduce HVAC building energy usage.
A recent report from research firm New Energy Finance, spending on Washington lobbyists by the clean energy industry has accelerated rapidly in recent years, but still lags behind that the fossil fuel industry. Through the first six months of 2009, the sector spent an unprecedented $r12.1 million on lobbying, According the Center for Responsive Politics, During the same period, oil and natural gas spent $82.2 million on lobbying, with ExxonMobil alone contributing $14.9 million. That’s $2.8 million more that the entire clean energy sector.
Can Off-peak Air Conditioning (OPAC) technology, improve the green energy profile of data centers? One of the major energy consumption categories of data centers is their need to keep all of their rows of rack mounted servers operating within their critical temperature parameters. Many various techniques are increasingly being adopted by data centers around the world in order to lower their overall cooling needs. An additional technology exists that I believe can help data centers improve their energy usage profiles by shifting energy demand to off-peak hours and in so doing significantly lower their energy consumption during critical periods of peak demand. Off-peak Air Conditioning (OPAC) technology is a way for data centers to improve their peak energy demand profile.
