In previous posts, I have made the argument that Virginia needs to incentivize Dominion and other electric utilities to invest in conservation programs and energy efficiency as well as expanding electric-generating and transmission capacity. The logical question is… what kind of programs?
Like a program rolled out earlier this week by Pacific Gas & Electric, which is leading the formation of a nationwide coalition of utilities to coordinate energy efficiency programs for the high tech sector, focusing on data centers. Quoting from GreenBiz.com:
PG&E offers a comprehensive portfolio of program and service offerings for the high tech sector, including financial incentives for customers who pursue energy efficiency projects in their data centers. The company was the first to offer incentives for virtualization and server consolidation, a program that is prompting customers to remove underutilized computing equipment using virtualization technology.
Data centers can use up to one hundred times the energy per square foot of typical office space, so the energy efficiency opportunities are significant. “A customer choosing from our menu of programs, which include cooling system improvements, high-efficiency power conditioning equipment retrofits, airflow management tune-ups, virtualization, and replacement of computing and data storage equipment with the latest technologies can generally drive a third to as much as half of the energy use out of their operations,” according to [Mark] Bramfitt [High Tech Segment Manager for PG&E].
Northern Virginia has 14 data farms and more on the drawing boards. It would be comforting to know that Dominion has joined the PG&E coalition. But if it has, it wasn’t mentioned by name in the story.