Planning ahead can save big $$ on energy bills
As you can see from the chart, IT departments consume a great deal of the companies overall power consumption. Some recent advances in OS’s and hardware can actually save you money. But you can do a few things today, without any new investments. For example, taking advantagve of the power-saving setting already available on desktops and servers, some can realize as much as 20% savings. By consolidating operating systems on one or more virtual servers, it is often possible to reduce the number of physical servers in use, again leading to reduced energy consumption. Some small to medium sized organizations have realized savings from $600 on direct energy costs, to over $1200 a year if you include cooling and other indirect costs. Using high-efficiency power supplies can often cost more, but usually will pay for themselves plus some when balanced against the amount of energy consumed.
Of course the use of solar panels can save considerable dollars, but are often ruled out due to high up-front costs. This is changing however, with many solar power firms offering new methods to finance such investments. Foster City, CA based SolarCIty is launching a lease program the will slash upfront costs. Other companies, such as Sun Run, SunPower Corp. and Sun-Edison will pay for the equipment and installation costs, then offer the customer reduced rates on the power that is generated from the equipment.
Other innovative approaches to solar power are in the works. We will be reporting on some of these as they become available.