The Green (or Sustainable) Building: Part IV – Water and Energy Efficiency

This, the fourth article in our series on green (sustainable) buildings focuses on the twin subjects of energy efficiency and water efficiency two fundamental areas of importance for green buildings. These are important not only because they reduce usage of and promote reuse of these precious resources, but because in so doing to minimize the building environmental impact. A well designed green building, can not only reduce its own environmental impact, but can improve a surrounding environment.

Could Ice Help Data Centers Be Green?

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.