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The Greening of IT
44 How Companies Can Make a Difference for the Environment

leakage, and other inefficiencies. The data was then used to build cus-
tomized thermal and energy models to help mitigate hot spots and rec-
tify imbalances within the data center.
PG&E was the first company to offer incentives for power-saving
technologies, encouraging customers to get rid of underutilized comput-
ing and data storage equipment through virtualization. In addition, the
company recently spearheaded a coalition of utilities to discuss and coor-
dinate energy-efficiency programs for the high-tech sector, focusing on
data centers.
The online business tools offered by Pacific Gas and Electric
Company provide companies with help to make their data centers more
efficient. The tools include the following:

■ Business Tools Features
■ Energy Usage
■ Billing History
■ Rate Comparison Tools
ptg
■ Energy Outage and Restoration Status
■ Billing Details
■ Account Aggregation

Check with your electric utility on energy audits. Some utilities such
as PG&E offer free energy audits. Here’s the PG&E Web site on the free
audit: http://www.pge.com/mybusiness/energysavingsrebates/analyzer/.
Of course, after your free audit, you might be eligible for rebates for
your green IT initiatives. For an example, see http://www.pge.com/
mybusiness/energysavingsrebates/rebatesincentives/.

Governments

This topic was mentioned at the end of Chapter 2, “The Basics of
Green IT,” and is covered in more detail in Chapter 4, “The
Government’s Role—Regulation and EPA Activity.” With all the recent
publicity on the growth of energy use by Enterprise Level IT equipment,
the 2008 quantity of energy use—about 2 percent of 2008 global
energy use; and the expected double-digit increases in data center
energy growth for the next five years (Koomey 2007, 2008)—various