Energy Smart
We brought together leaders from the world of energy networks and from digital infrastructure.
Here's what they had to say
about the future.
Recorded 20th June, 2017 , San Francisco
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Online services are expanding and developing rapidly, making data centers a fundamental part of the infrastructure supporting human society. According to Jim Connaughton, a former presidential environmental adviser now working for Nautilus Data Technologies: “They are the foundation of the new economy.”
But data centers are intrinsically fast moving.
The IT equipment is replaced every three to five years, and the cloud applications running on it can have a lifetime of months. This Protean package ironically depends on a much less flexible life support system: the electricity grid.
“Energy investments are intrinsically generational in length, or you can never make them pay for themselves,” explained Don Paul of the University of Southern California Energy Institute. “But the digital world, which is wrapped around that now, like two strands of DNA, is cycling around at ten times the rate.”
This is an excerpt from an article by Peter Judge
Next event:
DCD>Energy Smart | Stockholm
We will be exploring the European perspective on the digital infrastructure energy challenge on 13th March, 2018
Chapters
A lot of people are asking if data centers use too much energy. The real issue is bigger: Can data centers and the energy supply industry work together to deliver electricity and online services which meet our needs… without costing the earth?
Ten years ago, a report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) warned that data center power usage was out of control. Last year an updated report found that energy use by US data centers has actually leveled off. But there is a lot more to the story than that, according to senior executives from both the data center and the power industries, who gathered for DCD’s first Energy Smart Summit in San Francisco in June.
Data centers’ insatiable demand for power may actually be just what the utility grids need – and the thing that has to change is not the infrastructure but the people.
“With the smart grid going forward we need to serve data customers with renewable energy, and not just maintain power quality but improve power quality and reliability.”
Leanne Swanson
Southern California Edison
Chapter 1
Do we curb energy
demand or feed it?
Chapter 2
Roundtable #1
Smart energy utilities and interconnected convergence with the digital infrastructure ecosystem
Leanne Swanson
Southern California Edison
Dean Nelson
Uber Compute
Prof. Donald Paul
USC Energy Institute
Adam Kramer
Switch
Dr. Priscilla Johnson
PG&E
David Rinard
Equinix
“Energy investments are intrinsically generational in length, or you can never make them pay for themselves. But the digital world, which is wrapped around that now, like two strands of DNA, is cycling around at ten times the rate.”
Don Paul
University of Southern California Energy Institute
James Connaughton
NautilusDT
Gary Demasi
Dr.Julie Albright
USC
Bruce A. Taylor
DCD
David Murray
Hydro-Québec
Mark Mills
Manhattan Institute
Susanna Kass
Baselayer
Peter Gross
Bloom Energy
Dr. Mukesh Khattar
EPRI
Chapter 3
Roundtable #2
Smart data center + sustainability
“With backup power systems and demand response schemes data centers can effectively erase themselves from the grid at critical moments.”
David Murray
President of Distribution
Hydro-Quebec
Patrick Flynn
Salesforce
Kelly Gallo
BSR Future of Internet Power
Susanna Kass
Baselayer
Tod Sword
SCE Consulting
Bruce Myatt
CLEAResult Consulting
Dave Leonard
Viawest
Jakob Carnemark
Aligned Energy
Jay Taylor
Schneider Electric
John Sheputis
Infomart Data Centers
Keith Klesner
Uptime Institute
Timothy Berg
IID Energy
Dale Sartor
LBNL
David Murray
Hydro-Québec
Chapter 4
Roundtable #3
Borderlands- emerging digital energy and the data center
“In 2016, in Las Vegas, Switch accounted for the entire growth in a large rate class which includes a lot of casinos. The growth rate was one percent.”
Adam Kramer
Vice President Strategy
Switch
Mukesh Khattar
EPRI
Garrick Rochow
Consumers Energy
David Murray
Hydro-Québec
Adam Kramer
Switch
Martin Otterson
OSIsoft
Jason Van Gaal
ROOT Data Center
Rich Miller
Data Center Frontier
Marvin Rowell
Baselayer
Chris Hiller
Duke Energy/REC Solar
Shawn Mills
Green House Data
Killian Tobin
Omega Grid
Mark Feasel
Schneider Electric
Chapter 5
Picture Gallery