EPA releases Energy Star specification for servers

Saving energy in the data center

A new version of the government’s Energy Star specification that applies to server efficiency will go into effect next July.

The Version 4.0 Tier 1 specification will replace the Version 3.0 Tier 2 specification, which has been in effect since July 2000.

Intel is one of the first companies to support the Environmental Protection Agency’s latest Energy Star specification. The company says it will deliver PCs and laptop processors and system components that meet the specification and that its Core2 Duo processors will be the first to do so.

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A new version of the government’s Energy Star specification that applies to server efficiency will go into effect next July.

The Version 4.0 Tier 1 specification will replace the Version 3.0 Tier 2 specification, which has been in effect since July 2000.

Intel is one of the first companies to support the Environmental Protection Agency’s latest Energy Star specification. The company says it will deliver PCs and laptop processors and system components that meet the specification and that its Core2 Duo processors will be the first to do so.

The final draft of the EPA protocol, which is available this week, stipulates the amount of power a server can use in performing transaction-based benchmarks.

The specification is aimed at saving U.S. businesses and homes more than $1.8 billion in energy costs over the next five years. It is also expected to prevent greenhouse gas emissions equal to the annual emissions of 2.7 million cars.

With the specification, the EPA hopes to achieve a national power management enabling rate of 40% by 2010, 60% by 2012, and around 80% by 2014. The power management enabling rate is a parameter for enabling power in a computer and used to judge the environmental impact of a machine.

The specification calls for the use of highly efficient internal and external power supplies and computers that are 65% more efficient than traditional models. Interested parties can read the new Energy Star specification in this PDF document.

Other hardware vendors participating in the EPA Energy Star program include IBM, HP, Sun, Dell and AMD. It is aimed at these vendors’ 1 and 2U servers.

Google is involved in a power efficiency effort of its own (see “Google's power proposal”). Meanwhile, some data center managers have initiatives in place to reduce enterprise electricity consumption and increase the efficiency of their technology infrastructures (see “These energy efforts are hot, hot, hot”).

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