Verizon has significantly reduced energy consumption and carbon emissions at 24 of its U.S. data centers through its installation of an energy management system from Vigilent, the telecoms company has announced.
The software targets cooling efficiency and instantly cut energy use by turning off about 40 percent of the computer room air conditioners in these data centers within two days of system implementation, Verizon said. The platform helped Verizon decrease average temperatures by two degrees Fahrenheit throughout the data centers, with significantly reduced temperature fluctuations and extremes.
Verizon said it anticipates saving more than 55 million kWh a year and cutting greenhouse gas emissions by more than 66 million pounds because of the installation. Now it plans to install the Vigilent system at more of its U.S. data center sites.
"This combination of energy savings and improved efficiencies goes a long way toward helping meet Verizon's goal of improving its carbon efficiency by 15 percent this year," said Mark Capurso, director of national technical operations at Verizon.
Vigilent energy management systems consist of hundreds of wireless temperature sensors at each data center, connected through an intelligent mesh network to on-site servers using energy management software. These systems delivered real-time data about environmental conditions throughout each facility, then provided analysis and recommendations for optimal configurations and performance.
Verizon said it chose Vigilent after an extensive investigation into a wide range of approaches to address data center cooling issues.
"Verizon was able to capture significant reductions in cooling energy and its carbon footprint while simultaneously helping to increase uptime, resilience and protection for these mission-critical facilities," said Mark Housley, chief executive officer at Vigilent.
Overall, Verizon says its energy reduction and recycling initiatives in its facilities around the globe reduced CO2 emissions by more than 297.5 million pounds in 2010, leading to an improvement of more than 15 percent in the rate of emissions per terabyte of data, a new metric Verizon developed to measure carbon efficiency.
Last month Verizon said that it has implemented Polargy’s PolarPlex containment system across nearly 1 million square feet of data centers, achieving a 7.7 percent improvement in energy efficiency.
Last month it also reported that fewer than 200 Verizon employees saved more than 18,000 gallons of fuel through teleworking in just six months.
