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The Green Grid is a consortium of information technology companies seeking to lower the overall consumption of power in data Centres around the globe.  Assistant Secretary Karsner and John Tuccillo, director of The Green Grid, signed the MOU at the New York Stock Exchange, kicking off a day of in-depth discussions with operators of financial services data Centres.

Assistant Secretary Karsner said:
"The agreement signed today with The Green Grid builds on the Department's continued effort to improve energy efficiency in the private sector. Data Centres represent an important part of the information economy, and joining forces with The Green Grid puts us on a path to identify and build the necessary tools for thousands of data Centres to more easily capture energy savings."

The DOE-Green Grid MOU intends to focus on assisting data centre operators and facilities to initiate and implement an energy management programme and adopt clean energy and efficiency technologies.  Specifically, the MOU identifies future activities DOE and The Green Grid may collaborate on to: develop a common set of metrics and tools; develop a website so data centres can easily access tools and resources to initiate and implement an energy management programme; encourage data centres to obtain energy savings assessments; train company personnel in conducting energy savings assessments and in using tools to identify energy efficiency enhancements; and define areas of pre-competitive research and development for data centre operations.

Efficiency and Savings
As part of Assistant Secretary Karsner's discussions, DOE and The Green Grid have also set a common goal of improving overall energy efficiency in data centres by 10 percent by 2011, factoring in current projected data centre use.  Approximately 10 billion kilowatt-hours would be saved, equivalent to electricity consumed by 1 million US households annually.  These energy savings would also reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 6.5 million tons per year - equivalent to removing nearly 1.3 million cars from the road annually.

Because data centres are among the fastest growing industries in the United States, the DOE has identified them as key to increasing energy efficiency, reducing load on the electricity grid, and enhancing data centre reliability.  Last year, data centres were estimated to have used 61 billion kilowatt-hours, or 1.5 percent of electricity in the United States, and it is projected to grow 12 percent per year through 2011.

Since 2005, DOE has completed 344 energy savings assessments in some of the Nation's most energy-intensive companies.  These energy savings assessments have identified over $585 million in potential savings.  If fully implemented, these energy improvements would yield CO2 emission reductions equivalent to removing nearly 850,000 cars from the road each year.