Although we live in an AC-dominated world, DC seems poised for a comeback, particularly in data centers. Facebook adopted a DC architecture in its Prineville, Ore., data center. SAP spent $128,000 retrofitting a datacenter at its offices in Palo Alto, Calif., to rely on DC power. Read More »
Cleantech
Google is officially shutting down its own in-house research initiative and equity investing focus on lowering the cost of clean power, called Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal, or RE Read More »
Facebook officially announced the data center that it’s building in the chilly climate of Lulea, Sweden, and it’s going to be powered “primarily from renewables.” No, not solar or wind but hydropower (water and dams), which is still the cheapest kind of clean power. Read More »
Data centers might not be the energy hogs anticipated in 2010, but they’re still offering a growing market for both energy efficiency technology and clean power. Read More »
A growing list of data-center operators are looking to buy tech to help them reduce their energy consumption. Which is why startup SynapSense, which provides such monitoring tech, is looking to expand and has raised a $16 million round from VCs. Read More »
A common misperception is that the bulk of the energy consumption associated with the Internet and connected-computing comes from massive data centers. In reality, the billions of end devices — computers, set-top-boxes — are currently the bigger and more wasteful culprits. Read More »
Today, at our third-annual Green:Net event, we’re looking at digital energy: how technology can reduce energy consumption and help the environment. The livestream begins at 8:25 PT, and we’ll update this post throughout the day with the liveblogs from the event. Read More »
Has Google struck geothermal gold in West Virginia? A Google-funded report shows the state’s underground heat could provide 18,890 megawatts of power, more than its current coal-fired generation capacity. Read More »
There are many tech-paved roads that lead to reduced energy use in data centers, from software-centric solutions to those that put sensors on every server and fan. But the paths to commercializing those technologies are, by comparison, relatively few. Read More »
There’s a gold rush mentality going on right now when it comes to building data centers in Iceland, according to execs of the companies that have been moving into that market. The latest person to reference this phrase to me is the CTO of Verne Global. Read More »
The EPA has just opened up its Energy Star program to data centers, using an efficiency rating system years in the works that’s based on the Power Usage Effectiveness, or PUE, metric. Read More »
Well, I sure didn’t see this one coming. HP Labs researchers this week put forth an intriguing idea for powering data centers: harvesting and processing dairy cow waste. But what are the pros and cons of powering data centers with cow power? Read More »
More Must Reads
