Earlier this month PG&E awarded Brocade Communications Systems a $US2.1 million award for Brocade’s 125,000 square food data center in San Jose (pictured).
The
award was the largest data center energy efficiency grant in PG&E’s history, and is a welcome example of how
Silicon Valley, despite its reliance on energy to fuel its technology companies, will have a central role in leading the green economy revolution.
Expect more investments like this to occur even more in the future. With
energy costs rising and the threat of regulations always lurking around the corner, grants like that of PG&E are in utilities’ vested interests.
So far Brocade has spent $US6 million on
energy efficiency technologies that transform chillers, cooling towers, and state-of-the-art electrical distribution systems. If all goes to plan, Brocade will save US$1.5 million annually on utility bills and prevent 5700 tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted into the atmosphere. Brocade also has installed solar panels on its headquarters campus.
Grants like that of PG&E’s will allow both energy efficient and
clean energy technologies to thrive--and as oil prices rise (which they will again at some point), utilities will find that they can profit from their management of renewable energy projects from solar arrays to wind farms. It is encouraging to see more projects like this emerge.
