Energy and the role of IT: I was fortunate enough to attend the Energy Manager’s Association EnPC conference at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers earlier this week. Incidental to the primary topic at hand (the construction and signing off of Energy Performance Contracts – EnPC) was the startling prediction that energy costs are set to double in the next five years. As if that wasn’t startling enough, the resources and infrastructure required to match that demand is not going to remain static, but rather shrink; in short – demand is going to outstrip supply with the very real prospect of brown-outs (power-outages).
So who within your company will be charged with making your workplace more energy efficient? Let’s not forget that with year-on-year increases in the cost of energy you are not taking efficiency steps to thrive, but rather to survive. Energy efficiency is not a “nice have”, it’s a necessity.
Energy and the role of IT: Conclusion
IT very much has its own role to play in seeking to ensure that it is not passively adding to the bottom line. Do you know how much energy your IT department uses? Have you considered what steps you need to take to reduce such expenditure? Could you align your Software Asset Management initiatives to energy efficiency proposals? A simple power management policy around the switch off of non-essential devices after working hours could offer significant savings to the company bill. Consider the benefits of not supplying everyone with a traditional desktop device; if you are going through a hardware refresh program, can you weave in the benefits of an energy efficient approach to off-set costs to the company? Perhaps even advocate a BYOD program? (providing the requisite information and security and licensing protocols have been established) The beauty of such savings is that you are chipping away at fixed costs – it could be very easy to become the Finance Director’s new best friend in doing so.
For your own part, if you can run a lean IT estate via SAM then you are adding value. Head over to our Videos page, and see where Software Rationalisation and Software Recycling can help. You could be off-setting license costs to help with energy costs…..
Interesting points on Green IT in the office but I would say that the data centre is where organizations should focus their attentions if they want to achieve significant power (and cost) reductions.
All servers have a power and heat rating which should be take into account when decision about upgrades are taken