NYC Data Centers Offered $10m for Efficiency Upgrades

Data centers in the New York area that improve their energy efficiency are eligible for $10 million in incentives, under a program announced this week.

Under the Data Center Efficiency Program, data centers in New York City and Westchester County can receive financial incentives and technical assistance. Supported initiatives may include IT equipment upgrades, server upgrades, virtualization, storage consolidation and infrastructure upgrades, as well as new construction.

The program is being run by utility the Consolidated Edison Company of New York (Con Edison) and agency the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), with an aim of reducing energy costs by $8 million and achieving 55,000 MWh in annual energy savings.

The two organizations will help companies through the design and implementation of energy efficiency projects, and will also help data centers identify their energy efficiency options.

New York State contains the second highest concentration of data centers in the country, and studies have shown that energy consumption from data centers doubled between 2000 and 2005, Energy Central reports.

NYSERDA said that New York’s data centers spend up to $600 million a year on energy – an amount that may double within three to five years.

“New York State has a high concentration of mission-critical data centers. Data centers have historically maximized uptime and reliability without always focusing on energy efficiency,” said Rebecca Craft, director of energy efficiency programs at Con Edison.

“Through the Con Edison/NYSERDA joint Data Center Initiative, we’ll be working together to create sustainable information technology,” Craft added.

NYSERDA also has energy efficiency incentives for data centers in the rest of New York state.

Picture credit: The Planet