With energy bills on the rise, and temperatures dropping, winter can be an expensive time of the year. It can be tricky to balance not spending too much with making sure your residence is warm enough to be comfortable. Below are several ways to cut down on energy use, from bigger projects such as insulating lofts and walls, to making sure your radiators aren’t having to work double to keep your house warm.

Insulation

• Insulation can make a huge difference in both keeping your house warm and keeping your bills down. 25% of heat is lost through lack of proper roof and loft insulation [1], so insulating these areas can make a huge difference to the warmth of your house. Insulation can save families between £45 and £110 a year [2].
• Wall and floor insulation can also help to save energy and money. Depending on when the property was built, solid or cavity wall insulation can be installed – external walls on houses built before 1920 are likely to be solid walls, which allow more heat to pass through than cavity walls, which are usually found in properties built after 1920.

Windows

• Energy-efficient glazing can help to reduce the amount of heat lost through windows during the cold winter months. Double glazing works by having two panes of glass with a gap between them, usually 16mm, which stops heat from escaping. Triple glazed windows have an extra pane of glass.
• By upgrading from single to double glazing windows you could save between £40 and £175 a year, depending on property size, and the energy rating of the windows [3].

Heating systems

• Have a look at the condition of your heating system – is it performing as it should? Does it need fixing or parts replaced to make sure it’s working as best it can? Newer more efficient models require an initial upfront cost, but save both energy and money over time.
• Set timers so that heat is produced only when you need it, rather than being on all day.

Radiators

• Don’t heat empty rooms! Make sure radiators are turned down in rooms used less often – this reduces your energy use and bills.
• Make sure not to cover your radiators. This stops heat spreading to the rest of the room, and also makes the radiators work harder.

Curtains

• Keep curtains open during the day to let sunlight in and close at dusk to stop heating escaping. Make sure only windows are covered, and not radiators.

Extra Layers

• Before central heating existed the best way (and still one of the best ways) to stay warm was to cover yourself with extra layers – blankets, jumpers and thick socks can help you to stay warmer during the cold winter months without having to turn up the heating!

References

[1] National Insulation Association. Insulation: The Facts and Figures. 2011. http://www.nia-uk.org/media-and-information/uploads%5Cnews%5Cid146%5C20110404_Insulation_Facts_and_Figures_final.pdf

[2] National Insulation Association. Loft Insulation. 2014. http://www.nia-uk.org/householder/index.php?page=loft-insulation

[3] Energy saving trust. Windows. 2014. http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/scotland/Insulation/Windows

As winters are getting colder and summers come with record high temperatures, we may think more and more about the comfort of a well-insulated and well-ventillated house.

Today, many companies are working on incorporating simple and easy techniques in order to achieve the best ventilation and insulation for more sustainable buildings.

As an example, cooling of spaces can consume a significant amount of energy and there are a number of innovations already available that can replace traditional air-conditioning systems.

Recent Ashden-Award-winner Monodraught has developed a low-energy cooling and ventilation system called COOLPHASE. It utilises the features of so-called Phase Change Materials (PCM), which can absorb thermal energy from their environment and hence enable the cooling of the room. Running costs of the system are said to be 90 per cent lower than traditional methods, and it’s very efficient as at night it re-charges the PCMs inside the equipment.

Natural ventilation is also a hot topic. The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers even has a special interest group focusing on this area. One of the companies working in this field is Breathing Buildings, offering a range of natural ventilation products, including the e-stack system that keeps air exchange between the interior and the outside to a minimum in cold conditions, while in warmer weather it increases the ventilation rate to avoice overheating.

A significant number of houses are not insulated, and in these about 45 per cent of heat loss is through the walls. Hence insulation could mean a serious tool in reducing wasted energy levels and lowering bills.

For some, home insulation is equal to mess and inconvenience due to the construction work, while sometimes internal insulation can’t be done at all because of planning restrictions. These issues have been addressed by the new insulation technology called WHISCERS, developed by United House and Sustainable Energy Academy for houses with solid walls. The process is simple: dimensions of walls are mapped with a laser scanner, then insulation boards are cut exactly to measure and delivered to the location. This can happen within only 24 hours. When the boards are there, these are installed quickly and with minimum mess, so the life of residents is hardly disrupted.

These are only a few of the solutions that are already available for making buildings more sustainable. With the exponentially growing number of new technologies and innovations it is only a question of the willingness of residents to improve their homes – and save money.

Reducing your lighting bill is one of the easiest ways to save money, as lighting can account for up to 8% [1] of the average household’s monthly bill, and an even larger percentage of a small business’ electricity consumption. There are several ways to reduce your lighting bill, such as by replacing any inefficient traditional bulbs with newer energy efficient ones, or by simply making some small changes to your current lifestyle, for example turning off light switches when leaving a room.

Bulbs

Energy saving lightbulbs have often been seen as taking too long to warm up, not being bright enough, or as costing too much. However, over the past few years there have been tremendous developments, with newer models matching the colour and ‘warmth’ of traditional incandescent bulbs, appearing in a large range of sizes and styles, and with an energy payback of 15 months or less [2]. These new bulbs have a lower wattage than traditional bulbs, so use less energy. An 100W traditional bulb provides the same light as a 25W efficient bulb [3], but since the wattage is much lower, your electricity consumption is also lower.

• Compact fluorescents (CFLs) are widely available and provide a number of advantages over a traditional bulb, such as emitting less heat, and using a fraction of the energy. CFLs now typically take less than a minute to reach 95% of their full light output with virtually no flickering [4], and are now designed to be the same size, or even smaller, than traditional bulbs. By replacing a traditional bulb with a CFL you can make savings of around £3 a year, or an overall saving of £50 over the lifetime of the bulb [5].
• LEDs (light emitting diodes) are even more efficient than CFLs, and save more money in the long term, though have a higher upfront cost. LEDs do not need time to warm up and are instantly at their full brightness, with no flickering. By replacing a halogen bulb with an LED you can save £4 a year, and up to £140 over the lifetime of the bulb [6].

Energy Saving Warehouse has a wide range of energy saving light bulbs that can help you save on your electricity consumption.

Using Less Lighting

Energy savings bulbs can save you both energy and money, and combined with some simple energy savings strategies, you can reduce both even further!

• Use natural light as much as possible. Position desks and other areas which require good lighting close to windows and keep windows clean.
• Dust can diminish the effectiveness of lighting, so keep fixtures clean and dust-free.
• Turn off lights when leaving a room. Keeping a light on consumes more energy than turning it off and then back on again when you enter a room, even if you only leave for a second.
• Install movement activated sensors in areas which are less frequently used, such as toilets, as this can save you up to 30% on lighting costs [7].
• Install dimming controls, which allow you to adjust light levels in response to incoming daylight or to the lighting needs of your chosen task.
• When appropriate, use task lighting rather than lighting a large area. If only one desk in an office is occupied then using a suitable lamp can reduce the need to light a whole room.

For more simple and easy energy saving tips like these have a look around the website.

References

[1] Energy Saving Trust Scotland. Lighting. 2013. http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/scotland/Electricity/Lighting

[2] Vaughn, A. 2012. ‘LED lightbulbs can save you hundreds in energy bills.’ The Guardian, June 8. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jun/08/led-lightbulbs-save-energy-bills

[3] Centre for Sustainable Energy. Lighting: The low-energy bulb revolution. 2012. http://www.cse.org.uk/downloads/file/advice_leaflet_lighting.pdf

[4] LightBulbs Direct. Energy Saving. 2012. http://www.lightbulbs-direct.com/article/energy-saving/#

[5] Energy Saving Trust Scotland. Lighting. 2013. http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/scotland/Electricity/Lighting

[6] Ibid.

[7] Resource Efficient Scotland. Reduce your lighting bill. 2013. http://www.resourceefficientscotland.com/content/key-task/reduce-your-lighting-bill

Smart Meters

The government aims to have smart meters installed in every one of the 27 million businesses and homes in the UK by 2020, in order to try and reduce the country’s carbon emissions levels. Energy companies are required to begin replacing current gas and electricity meters between 2015 and 2019, although many companies have already begun to do so. This installation should be done free, with no upfront cost or one off charge. If your household or business would like to have a smart meter installed sooner and your current energy provider is unwilling to do so the DECC provides some links to providers that may do installations earlier than the required start date [1].

Many households rely on estimated bills to see their energy usage, which often makes it difficult to know what appliances and tasks are costing the most. Smart meters provide accurate and real time information, by measuring not only a household or business’ total energy usage, but also by breaking this total down to show when the energy has been used and the cost. Users will also be able to compare current and previous energy by using an in-home display unit.

Some benefits of having a smart meter are:

• getting an accurate measure of your energy use without having to wait for a meter reading as energy data can be access remotely by your energy provider
• seeing the actual cost of your energy use
• seeing which appliances are costing you the most to use
• being able to better budget usage with improved energy use visibility

Energy Monitors

Energy monitors work in a similar way to smart meters, but on a much smaller scale. Rather than letting you see your total energy usage, an energy monitor allows you to see how much energy a particular appliance uses, which in turn allows you to cut down usage of high costing appliances, or replace these with more energy efficient items. By allowing users to see the different costs of certain items, energy monitors have been shown to help reduce bills by between 5% and 20% [2]. By entering your own tariff into the monitor you are able to get the most accurate readings and costs. Energy monitors do not themselves reduce energy bills, but allow the user to make lifestyle changes based on which appliances have high power usage or are unnecessarily wasting energy.

Some energy suppliers provide free monitors when you sign up for a certain tariff, but you can also purchase devices yourself for increasing lower prices. Most electronics stores will stock monitors, and great deals can be found online. Many comparison websites, such as Which? [3], also provide a wide range of options to chose from, depending on your budget and needs.

It may also be worth considering if you are using the most environmentally friendly energy provider in your area. An easy way to compare providers and tariffs is through Energy Saving Warehouse’s tool

References

[1] Department of Energy and Climate Change. Smart meters: a guide. 2013. https://www.gov.uk/smart-meters-how-they-work

[2] Towards Zero Carbon Bute. Energy Monitors. 2013. http://www.tzcb.org.uk/?page_id=353

[3] Which?. Energy Monitor Reviews. 2013. http://www.which.co.uk/energy/creating-an-energy-saving-home/reviews/energy-monitors/

Virtualization is the perception of sharing hardware resources among the services and applications that use the resources. At the Gartner Symposium ITxpo in 2008, virtualization was the number one of its top 10 strategic technologies. Virtualization allows to take a single hardware resource and turn it into multiple resources from the application’s point of view. For instance, a single physical server can be transformed into multiple “virtual” servers, each with its own CPU, memory, disk drive, and network controller which are not connected to each, even though they all run on the same physical server. This allows numerous applications to run on a single server without the opportunity of them interfering with each other. In fact, server virtualization is the most familiar and most frequently way of virtualization applied today. Other resources that can be virtualized comprise disk storage, memory, network resources, and applications. By virtualizing physical resources, companies can save energy and money, as well as make it easier to reposition these resources as the needs of the business changes.

Virtualization essentially uses software to reduce hardware. On a server or a desktop PC, it allows many operating systems and several applications to run on a single computer. The software that makes this possible is known as a hypervisor. The hypervisor creates a layer between the physical hardware and the virtualized operating system or application. Sometimes, the hypervisor acts as its own operating system and works directly with the hardware; in other cases, it only sits on top of the operating system installed on the machine. The hypervisor makes the virtual operating system or application think that the underlying hardware belongs only to it, providing an isolated environment, and then a problem with one does not affect another working on the same hardware.

Other types of virtualization, such as virtualizing networks, desktops, and storage, all work in a similar fashion. A part of software assisted by specialized hardware, sometimes allows to create a virtual resource from one or more physical resources, managing and allocating this resource to users and applications as needed. Virtualization greatly offers potential benefits to an organization without regard to its impact on the environment. However, virtualization offers as well benefits from a green perspective:

1. Reduced energy use: By rising the utilization of computing resources and decreasing the number of physical devices, the quantity of energy needed to operate the devices is reduced. Therefore, the amount of energy required to cool these devices, thus doubling the reduction of energy usage.
2. Diminution in toxic waste: The majority of these electronic devices have toxic materials including lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyl (PBB), and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants. These materials can be released into the environment if the devices are not recycled correctly.
3. Decreasing in facility requirements: If the amount of equipment is decreased, so it will be reflected in more space.

As serves in data facilities worldwide consume around 408 Megawatt , data centre companies also are moving towards “greener “ IT operations, by using wireless network and  network virtualization for removing servers from services as a result of server consolidation. Virtualizing a data center gives significant savings to a company, but it takes time for IT managers to understand how to best apply this new approach and which type of virtualization to choose. Once the principles are clear and the changes are performed, the savings are almost instantaneous. When companies think about being Green, they look at their emissions, their waste stream, and their overall “footprint” on the environment. This is natural since this is what gains headlines in the press. Energy saving gadgets used in conjunction with these ideas around the work place are helping companies become greener.

However, there is another area where significant environmental benefits can be realized. It is named a virtualized work force. One of the challenges companies face is the growth of their work force. Companies add floor space, parking lots, break areas, and others. Over time, departments become disjointed across numerous floors or over diverse office trying to provide an adequate space. However, All of this floor space is expensive as well as the cost of cubicles, furnishings, and computing equipment. When documents physically moved from one person to another, this approach makes a great deal of sense. Companies can save money by virtualizing a part of their work force. This reduces office space, furniture, and utility costs. Workers would not need a place to sit as they could to sit at home. They would not need a work area to shuffle paper, as everything is accomplished electronically. They are using the same data center servers and internal network as before, but the difference is the potential need for a higher capacity network connection from the data center to the outside world.

In conclusion, it can be seen that virtualization holds promise as a solution for many challenging problems. It can help reduce infrastructure costs, delay data-center build-outs, improve the ability to respond to fast-moving business needs, allow a massive-scale infrastructure to be managed in a more flexible and automated way, and help reduce carbon emissions.

 References

Kotsovinos, E. 2011.Virtualization: Blessing or curse?.Communication of the ACM. 54(1): 61-65.

Schultz, B. 2009. Citigroup LEEDS by example: New data centre certification in Texas wins green certification. Strategies and technologies for optimization IT. Retrieved 8 Jan, 2013 from WWW.NETWORKWORLD.COM

Webber, L & Wallace, M. 2009. Green Tech: How implement plan and implement sustainable IT solutions. Amacon: New York.

Noble, H. 2009. Green IT design. IT service University of Oxford. Retrieved Feb 23, 2013 fromWWW.OUCS.OX.AC.UK/GREENIT/OXFORD-CENTRAL-MACHINE-ROOM-DESIGN.XML?ID=BODY.1_DIV.7

As an energy intensive activity, transportation offers a wide range of opportunities to reduce both money and emissions. For most businesses the main type of vehicle use is that of employee’s commuting to and from work, and travel for meetings or training. While there are a wide range of options to help reduce emissions, telecommuting, car pooling and virtual meetings are three ways to significantly reduce your employees’ reliance on vehicle use.

Telecommuting

Telecommuting is on the rise, with recent research showing that around 20% of the global workforce now telecommutes, with 10% of those working from home every day [1]. With ever increasing internet speeds, more and more businesses are considering telecommuting as a way to reduce both their and their employee’s carbon footprints. By allowing employees to work from home they are able to work in a comfortable and safe environment, able to use time previously spent commuting for more productive purposes, and to make significant savings on fuel or public transport. The business also saves money by requiring less office space and parking spaces. By having a smaller work force on site, businesses’ energy and equipment needs are dramatically reduced, allowing for both savings is carbon emissions and electricity bills.
However, there are some disadvantages to telecommuting that need to be addressed before allowing staff to do so. While some people may relish the chance to work undisturbed by other staff or phone calls at home, others may lack the self-motivation to stay focused with distractions around them that would not be found at the office. Research found that 43% of those working from home admitted to watching a tv or movie with another 20% admitting to playing video games during work hours [2]. The benefits of telecommuting can be significant for both employees and businesses, but terms should be worked out between the two to make sure productivity stays high.

Car Pooling

One of the easiest ways to save both fuel and money is by car pooling. By sharing a journey with one or more people you instantly reduce the amount of petrol needed, the amount of vehicles on the road and the amount of driving you do. For employees who have long commutes to make, having company can make a previously tedious journey more enjoyable. The Energy Savings Trust estimates that by sharing a commute with two other people, annual savings of up to £280 can be made [3].
Businesses can encourage car pooling by offering incentives such as guaranteeing a car parking space or organising work events such as coffee mornings to allow employees who live in similar areas to be introduced. For those wanting to carpool but unable to find anyone else at work, websites such as Liftshare allow you to search for other people looking to carpool in your local area and provides a safe and easy way to contact them [4].

‘Virtual’ Meetings and Teleconferencing

Many businesses will have more than one office, and with these offices often spread around the country, it can be expensive and time consuming to get everyone in the same place at the same time for meetings or for training purposes. Face to face meetings can require staff to make long car or air journeys, the latter producing significantly more carbon emissions than any other type of transport.
While face to face meetings are often necessary in some situations, teleconferencing (communication by phone) and virtual meetings (communication by video call) can be a great way to reduce a business’ carbon footprint. You might find our range of headsets and conference phones useful if you are considering undertaking these activities. Software such as Skype [5] is easy to install and use, and is also free, while other software such as iChat comes already installed on Mac computers. Websites such as Socialbrite provide extensive lists of available software, with details such as costs, pros and cons and features [6], reducing the amount of time required to work out which software is best for your business.

References

[1] MySammy. Telecommuter Infographic – Statics and Stats on Telecommuting Workers. 2013. http://www.mysammy.com/infographics-telecommuter
[2] ibid.
[3] Energy Savings Trust. Using the car less. 2013. http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/scotland/Travel/Driving/Using-the-car-less#2
[4] Liftshare. Liftshare. 2013. https://www.liftshare.com/uk/
[5] Microsoft. Skype. 2013. http://www.skype.com/en/
[6] Socialbrite. Virtual meeting smackdown! 15 top web conferencing services compared. 2011. http://www.socialbrite.org/2011/01/19/comparison-top-web-conferencing-services/

One way in which businesses and property owners alike can help in this campaign is by introducing loft insulation into buildings. The National insulation association (2013) claimed that more than 40% of heat is lost through loft space and walls and with 25% of this heat loss coming directly from lofts this poses issues particularly with regards to how well homes and businesses can be energy efficient. The loss of energy occurs through air being heated in the home through central heating which is less dense than the cooler air around it and therefore rises. The ceilings become heated and eventually the heat escapes through the roof. Loft insulation works by using mineral wool trapping air forming an insulating layer between the rooms and attic (Beenergysmart,2013).  Loft insulation has become an increasingly popular option to reduce energy loss in the households as well as having the benefits of saving money. The energy saving trust estimates that the cost of fitting loft insulation is £50- £350 (beenergysmart,2013) highlighting that this method is relatively cheap considering once it has been installed householders can save up to £180 per year (Which₁,2013).

Government targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% between 2008-2050  have meant that a number of schemes have been introduced(Gov.UK, 2013).Free insulation schemes were set up by the government backed scheme-carbon emissions reduction target(CERT) but soon came to a rapid end in 2012. The ECO HHCRO provided a scheme to give free insulation helping those particularly on child tax credit, receiving state pension credit or working tax (beenergysmart, 2013).  Even though free  insulation schemes cannot be offered to all this should not cause evasion from installing the insulation as companies such as British gas offer £50 off when referring someone for insulation and Sainsbury’s energy customers receiving free cavity wall and loft insulation (Which₂,2013). With the benefits of insulation helping to reduce gas and electricity bills, keeping buildings cooler in summer and warmer and winter as well as reducing noise from the outside this energy saving option seems an exceptional method to reducing our carbon foot print as well as helping cutting the cost of our bills in our austere economic climate (Loftlagger,2013).

References 

Beenergysmart, 2013. Loft insulation. (online) Available at: http://www.beenergysmart.co.uk/energy-solutions/wall-loft-insulation/loft/ accessed on 5^th May 2013.

Department of energy and climate change. 2012. The energy efficiency strategy- the energy efficiency opportunity in the UK. (pdf)  available at:  https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/65602/6927-energy-efficiency-strategy–the-energy-efficiency.pdf accessed  5^th May 2013

Gov.UK. 2013. Reducing the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050.(online) Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/reducing-the-uk-s-greenhouse-gas-emissions-by-80-by-2050/supporting-pages/carbon-budgets Accessed on : 17th May 2013.

Loftlagger,2013. Loft insulation, why bother? (online) Available at: http://www.loftinsulationgrants.org.uk/loft/insulation/Why-insulate.aspx Accessed on: 10th May 2013.

National insulation association (2013). Where does all that heat go? (online) available at: http://www.nia-uk.org/householder/index.php accessed on 5th May 2013.

Patterson,M, 1996. What is energy efficiency. Concepts, indicators and methodological issues. Energy policy. Vol 24 (5) p377-390.

Which ₁, 2013. How to buy loft insulation. (online) Available at : http://www.which.co.uk/energy/creating-an-energy-saving-home/guides/how-to-buy-loft-insulation/loft-insulation-costs-and-savings/ accessed on : 6^th may 2013.

Which ₂, 2013. Energy grants, free insulation schemes. (online) available at: http://www.which.co.uk/energy/creating-an-energy-saving-home/guides/energy-grants/free-insulation-deals/ accessed on: 17^th May 2013.

Data centre managers historically have had three main goals when designing and operating the data centre: resiliency, availability and security. However, in a world of ever increasing environmental concerns such as carbon footprints and with the rising cost of energy in UK, a third priority has emerged: the vast amount of energy required to power data centre.

There has been an extraordinary boom in data centre demand as the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) by commerce, industry and the wider population has grown. The demand is determined by global growth of the Internet, electronic transactions in financial servers, eCommerce, high performance scientific computing, and the shift to using electronic medical records for health care, etc. Server and chip vendors packing more computer power into smaller envelopes has caused sharp rises in data center energy densities. Ten years ago, most data centers ran 500 watts to 1 kilowatt (kW) per rack or cabinet. Today densities can get to 20 kW per rack and beyond, and most expect the number to continue to increase. Therefore, every IT manager with a high density data center are considering hot-aisle or cold-aisle containment strategies.

Data centers are burdened with power and cooling challenges. For every 50 kW of power the data center feeds to an aisle, the same facilities typically apply 100-150 kW of cooling to maintain desirable equipment inlet temperatures. Data centers waste more than 60 percent of that cooling energy in the form of bypass air. Consequently, new and growing challenges in the data centre industry concerns computer data centres and the different ways to reduce their energy demand. About half of the data centers have already installed some kind of containment system, and the rest are working out whether or not to pursue containment, figuring out whether to seal the hot or cold aisle, and weighing the other variables of this new data center cooling best practice.

Efforts trying to reduce the power consumption have been seen in data centre companies in recent years in order to improve their energy performance. In a recent data centre industry survey performed by Uptime Institute (2012), the most power saving strategies implemented by the data centre industry were in hot/cold aisle containment (78%) and airflow management of temperatures (75%). According to “Data Center Decisions 2009” around half data centre companies had already implemented these containments or planned to use. Hot/cold aisle is a layout design for server racks and other computing equipment in a data centre, which conserve energy and lower cooling costs by managing air flow. Data centers use a hot aisle/cold aisle arrangement of the IT racks. The fronts of the racks face each other and draw cold air into the rack to cool rack mounted IT devices (i.e. servers, switches, etc.). On the other hand, the rear sides of the rows of racks face one another, distributing the hot air into the hot aisle.

 Why containments? 

The issue with hot aisle/cold aisle designs is that the air is free to move wherever it will. These hot/cold aisle containment strategies has gained traction because it can better control where hot and cold air goes, then data center’s cooling system running more efficiently. Using containment, the data center makes ever more efficient use of the same or less cooling, cutting the cooling fraction of the total energy bill because of data centers can power down some CRAC units, saving utility and maintenance costs. Containment also allows for lower cooling unit fan speeds, higher chilled water temperatures, decommissioning of extra cooling units increasing the use of free cooling.

Moreover, these containments can reduce fan energy consumption by up to 25-percent and deliver 20-percent energy savings at the cold water chiller, according to the U.S. EPA. They make running racks at high densities more reasonable so that data centers can include new IT equipment such as blade servers. Data center containment brings the power consumption to cooling ratio down almost 1 to 1 match in kW consumed, hence, data centres saving about 30-percent of their annual utility bill (lower OpEx) without additional CapEx. However, there are numerous considerations, and a variety of questions that data center managers should taking into account when implementing this technology, for instance:

• Should you do hot-aisle containment or cold-aisle containment?
• Should you do it yourself or buy vendor products?
• How do you measure whether containment actually worked as hoped?

Hot vs Cold Aisle Containment

Next up for data center managers is deciding whether to implement the hot or the cold aisle.  For example, American Power Conversion Corp. (APC) sells a pre-packaged hot -aisle containment product, while, Liebert Corp. sells cold-aisle containment. Not surprisingly, both APC and Liebert argue that their solution is best.

Containing the hot aisle means you can turn the rest of your data center into the cold aisle, as long as there is containment everywhere. The hot aisle is contained so that the precision air conditioning units only receive hot air from the aisles. Therefore, the data center contains the hot aisle to keep the hot air in that aisle and the cold air out. Contrary, containing the cold aisle means you may more easily use containment in certain sections of a data center rather than implementing containment everywhere. However, it needs finding a way to direct the hot air back to the computer room air conditioners (CRACs) or contending with a data center that is hotter than normal.

When comparing hot and cold aisle containment it can be seen that both offer accurately the same level of energy efficiency. The reason aisle containment improves the energy efficiency of data centres is because it increases the temperature of the air returning to the air conditioning units and thus increasing their efficiency. Hot aisle containment frequently reaches a higher level of operational energy efficiency because “most” of the space barring the contained aisle at the back of the server cabinets is kept at the supply air temperature, often around 25°C. This means the return air leaving the servers (within the hot aisle) will rise to 34°C +. With a cold aisle containment system “most” of the space barring the aisle at the front of the servers, would be kept at 34°C +, to gain maximum efficiency. Many data centre operators believe this is too hot for staff to work in, hence, they are not raising the temperature as high as they could. Therefore, it limits the efficiency gained from the containment system. However, cold-aisle advocates say that containing the cold aisle, the control of the flow and volume of cool air entering the front of the servers can be better than containing hot-aisle.

Both Hot Aisle Containment (HACS) and Cold Aisle Containment (CACS) offer superior power density compared with traditional cooling approaches. CACS can offer some improvements in a traditional room-based perimeter cooling layout. However, for most users the additional heating of the uncontained operators is an unacceptable condition which eliminates CACS as a considerable option. Consequently, most high efficiently and high density data centre projects, for new designs and retrofits, incorporate some forms of hot aisle containment the most suitable option.

 References

Rath, J. 2011. Data center strategies: simplifying high-stakes, mission critical decisions in a complex industry. Data centre knowledge. Retrieved Aug 2, 2012 from  WWW.VANTAGEDATACENTERS.COM/EARTHDAY/PDF/DCK-DATACENTER_STRATEGIES.PD 

Stansberry, M & Kudritzki, J. (2012). Data center industry survey. UPTIME INSTITUTE. Retrieved May 15, 2013 from HTTP://UPTIMEINSTITUTE.COM/2012-SURVEY-RESULTS 

Daim, T; Justice, J; Krampits, M; Letts, M; Subramanian, G & Thirumalai, M. (2009). Data center metrics: An energy efficiency model for information technology managers. Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal. 20(6):712 – 731 

Schmidt, J. 2008. Optimize data centre energy use: improving cooling processor and server efficiencies to reduce power consumption. Communication new, pp 10. 

Normendau, R. (2012). Approaches to Data Center Containment. Retrieved May 14, 2013 from WWW.DATACENTERKNOWLEDGE.COM/ARCHIVES/2012/11/08/APPROACHES-TO-DATA-CENTER-CONTAINMENT/

Fontecchio, M. (2010). Data center hot-aisle/cold-aisle containment how-tos. Retrieved May 15, 2013 from HTTP://SEARCHDATACENTER.TECHTARGET.COM/NEWS/1379116/DATA-CENTER-HOT-AISLE-COLD-AISLE-CONTAINMENT-HOW-TOS

According to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change in October 2012 in their estimates of home insulation levels, there are 26.9 million homes in the UK.  They conclude that 66% of homes with lofts have loft insulation of 125mm or more, 69% of homes with cavity walls have cavity wall insulation, and just 2% of homes with solid walls have solid wall insulation.  These figures have been improving, with 320,000 more homes having installed loft insulation and 150,000 having installed cavity wall insulation between July and October last year [1].  Despite this there is clearly room for more homes to improve insulation, and with recycling and reuse at the forefront of green thinking, recycled insulation products should not be ignored.

Why is home insulation important?

The benefits of effective home insulation are simple.  The less heat that is lost when it is cold outside and the less heat that is absorbed when it is warm outside, will mean less energy will be required by heating and cooling systems and therefore energy bills will be less, thus saving money and reducing the carbon footprint. The importance of insulation becomes apparent when you take into account that somewhere in the region of 50% to 70% of the energy used in a household is used for either heating or cooling [2].

Alternative materials and their advantages

Many common insulation products are already produced using recycled materials.  For example loft and cavity insulation can often be found to be made of recycled news paper.  The market for recycled insulation has been on the up for the past decade, and many manufacturers now offer a range of products that not only better man made synthetics in terms of green credentials but also in terms of performance.  The following list provides an overview of some of the natural materials available to be used as home insulation and their respective advantages. All have the advantage of being from sustainable sources.

Sheep’s wool

∙ Wool is classed as a hygroscopic fibre and therefore can absorb moisture, in fact more than any other natural fibre meaning its insulation properties do not vary with changing humidity unlike some fibre glass products [3].

∙ The high elasticity of wool fibres means that over time it will not settle, and therefore no performance will be lost.

∙ Has a very high fire resistance, it will extinguish itself if it is set on fire.

∙ It is estimated to use less than 15% of the energy used to produce man made synthetics such as glass fibre insulation.

∙ It repays energy costs approximately five times sooner.

∙ Wool can absorb and breakdown various harmful airborne pollutants such as formaldehyde and nitrogen dioxide [4].

Straw

∙ Can be used as part of the building’s structure and therefore can reduce the amount of timber required by half.

∙ If the straw bales are compressed and sealed with plaster it proves to be fire resistant.

∙Very low embodied energy, cheap to use and readily available.

Hemp

∙ Naturally resistant to fungus and insects.

∙ Much like wool it is a breathable material and therefore is able to absorb and release moisture to help regulate internal humidity.

∙ Insect and vermin resistant.

Cork

∙ Naturally resistant to rotting.

∙ Does not support combustion.

Cotton

∙ Can be sourced from the plant or alternatively from recycled clothes such as denim.

∙ Similar insulation properties to fibreglass but does not contain formaldehyde, a substance linked with some types of cancer.

∙ Breathable, like hemp and wool.

∙Insect repellent.

These materials are just some of the recyclable and sustainable materials that can be used for home insulation. On top of the given advantages, all the above have shown to be effective insulators, having an insulation value above that of current building regulations and in many cases having insulation properties greater than that of man made synthetics.  These natural materials not only help reduce C02 production by reducing energy usage in households, but many in fact absorb C02 before their life as insulation.  For example, hemp which as a plant absorbs C02, has been proven that for every cubic meter of hemp insulation produced, roughly 13 kg of C02 is absorbed [5].

With the housing sector accounting for somewhere in the region of a third of the country’s carbon footprint according to the Department of Energy and Climate Change [6], effective home insulation should not be disregarded by home owners and the government.  This combined with rising energy costs makes these sustainable alternatives to home insulation a serious consideration.

[1]https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/49403/7154-stat-release-est-home-ins-oct-2012.pdf

[2] http://www.ornl.gov/sci/roofs+walls/insulation/ins_01.html

[3] http://www.thermafleece.com/wonders-wool

[4] http://www.sheepwoolinsulation.ie/why_wool/

[5] http://www.ecologicalbuildingsystems.com/products/natural-insulation/

[6]https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/48195/3224-great-britains-housing-energy-fact-file-2011.pdf

The increasing demand for storage, networking and computation has driven intensification of large complex data centers that run many of today’s Internet, financial, commercial and business applications. Data a centers consume large amounts of electricity, they comprises of many thousands of servers and can use as much energy as small city. The demand for more information and superior analyses of data, along with a gradually rising need to store information, is causing the growth in the number and size of data centers. This growth in turn comes with an augment in the amount of energy consumed, including energy necessary to both power and cool the data centres computer equipment and facility system respectively.

The main problem in data centres is that a significant portion of the energy used is not going to the computers, but to power to the facility and cool the data centre. Data center energy usage can generally be divided into two mainly groups, IT systems (hardware and software) and the required supporting infrastructure (power and cooling systems) of the data center facility itself. Typical data centre energy consumption is attributed by 52% to equipment IT load such as processor, sever power supply , communication equipment and storage, and by 48% to facilities such as HVAC and lighting facilities, which in turn account for 54% of energy total consumption in buildings.
Direct electricity used by information technology (IT) equipment, cooling and power distribution in data centers represented about 1% of total world electricity consumption by 2005. In addition, this sector also is responsible for around 2% of global CO2 emissions approximately the same as the airline industry. Data centres are becoming “electricity guzzlers”, where the server farms alone contribute 200 million tons of CO2 of the total CO2 emissions globally. According to the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory (LBNL), data centers rank among the most energy-intensive types of Facilities (HVAC and lighting), using as much as 100 times the energy per square foot of a typical building. From 2005 to 2010, server consumption across the world data centres required additional capacity equal to more than 10 additional 1,000 MW power plants. Based on current trends, energy consumed by data centers will continue to grow by 12% per year, due to the growing demand from new services and users, resulting in an increase in GHG emissions. Electricity consumption (as a whole) in Western Europe is estimated to increase from a level of 56 terawatt hours (TWh) per year in 2007 to 104 (TWh) per year by 2020, with data centre power consumption playing a major part in this increase.
Based on current and foreseeable trends, the basic price of energy will continue to rise over time, and may become constrained as global demands rise, making energy use and efficiency a long term business priority. Moreover, Carbon footprint and greenhouse gases are also becoming subject to governmental regulations and taxes. According to The Green Grid report, there are now 28 types of energy policies affecting data centers in 12 EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) countries. Therefore, the rapidly increasing electricity demand for data center operation has motivated efforts to have a better understanding of current data center energy use as well as to identify strategies that reduce the environmental impact of these buildings.

In today’s world, it is almost impossible to discuss any business operation without considering efficiency. The goal for every data center owner or operator is to increase the energy efficiency without impacting on reliability. According to Uptime institute survey over 1,100 data centers around the world in 2012, data centre companies are looking for different energy efficiency strategies related with new cooling solutions that meet the demands of the hardware and the room, while optimizing energy efficiency. Environmental protection agency (EPA) has explored three energy-efficiency scenarios: improved operation, best practices and state-of-the-art, in order to develop a better understanding of energy efficiency, thus, illustrating a significant potential for efficient technologies and practices to improve the energy efficiency of IT equipment and site infrastructure. If state-of-the-art technologies were adopted in data centres, energy efficiency could be improved by as much as 55 % compared to current efficiency trends, representing the maximum technical potential.
Data centre companies are taken different steps in order to go green and to be a more sustainable sector. They notice greater opportunities in data centre cooling, power management and consolidation of servers, followed by facilities management and implementation of standards in order to reduce the energy consumption. Efforts trying to reduce the power consumption have been seen in data centre companies in recent years in order to improve their energy performance. For instance, some companies are implementing more efficient cooling systems and reducing the required power equipment by implementing virtualization and more green IT operations related with servers, memory and networks. In addition, they are implementing power saving strategies such as hot/cold aisle containment, free cooling techniques and CFD (computational fluids dynamics) models, airflow management of temperatures, air side economizer, more efficient processors including 45-nanometer silicon and quad-core processors, and chip cooling technology in order to reduce the energy requirements in data centres.
Consequently, it can be seen that making the operation of data centers “greener” has become the main focus of many research activities recently, looking for an appropriate and more efficient energy management in their operations. Efforts has been made by data centre companies in order to reduce the power in data centres and improve their energy performance, through the implementation of different innovations in the software and hardware, as well as newer installations for cooling data centres. However, data centers have been catalogued as a crucial environmental issue which deserves closer attention, hence, this data centre industry need to be studied in more detail and much deeper.