SUNNYVALE, Calif. - A group of technology industry leaders has announced their intent to form The Green Grid to help reduce the growing power and cooling demands of data centers. AMD, HP, Sun Microsystems, and IBM represent the founding sponsors of The Green Grid, an open, global organization whose goals are supported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Alliance to Save Energy. Members of The Green Grid seek to decrease data center and other IT facility energy usage patterns by defining and propagating best practices in data center operation, as well as construction and design. The Green Grid is intended to serve as an interactive resource for IT professionals, a forum for sharing proven practices in data center energy management as well as working with other organizations to identify new industry standards related to energy.

As an independent, nonprofit association, The Green Grid is open to any IT industry professionals with an interest in addressing energy consumption issues, particularly data center managers and IT operations executives. Founding membership is also open to companies such as systems integrators, utility companies, and anyone else concerned about energy efficiency issues in data centers.

Members are welcome to participate by registering online at www.TheGreenGrid.org, an independently hosted site where they can share best practices, discuss challenges, and define solutions to the increasing energy demands from IT. The role of the sponsors will be to help enable and fund the member-driven organization.

The founding sponsors of The Green Grid said they are devoted to working closely with both the EPA and the Alliance to Save Energy. Both organizations are in full support of The Green Grid and will play a key role in the development of the organization's charter as well as collaborating to identify solutions that cut energy costs as well as benefit the environment.

"The EPA is deeply concerned about the effects of increasing data center power consumption and associated rise in greenhouse gas emissions from data center operations," said Andrew Fanara, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Energy Star program. "We believe energy efficiency-focused technology innovation is key to addressing the significant impact that this growing energy use will have both on today's businesses and our environment. For that reason EPA is pleased to support the goals and mission of The Green Grid initiative. We look forward to communicating this initiative to our Energy Star partners and encouraging them to participate in the development of what we are confident will quickly become an important resource for both vendors and industry end-users. We applaud AMD and founding sponsors HP, IBM, and Sun Microsystems for helping to raise industry awareness of the need for solutions that will address these rapidly emerging critical issues."

"Business is a key economic sector that can benefit from employing energy efficiency technologies not only to save energy but also to save money, protect the environment, and enhance our national energy security," said Alliance to Save Energy President Kateri Callahan. "We are pleased to join EPA in endorsing The Green Grid and helping to bring the energy-efficiency message to U.S. data centers, which represent a growing component of the business sector."

Publication date: 07/17/2006