Colorado-based RLE Technologies has created a new line of business that tackles energy inefficiency in US data centers, promising to improve figures for power usage effectiveness (PUE).

As a service provider which specializes in monitoring and detecting leaks in the data centers of clients, the Fort Collins company has expanded its repertoire and now offers a fuller range of energy savings.

Jeremy Swanner has been appointed executive VP of the new division, Future Resource Engineering (FRE). This new subsidiary of RLE will offer consultancy services including facility assessment, suggestions for making savings and getting more productivity from the same input and, if needed, the physical installation of the changes.

Fixing recurring problems

The initiative came about as analysis by RLE revealed that there were typical patterns of consumption observable in its regular customer base and the clients frequently faced challenges in cutting their power consumption. Recurring problems that RLE addressed for clients included bad airflow leading to wasted energy and duplicated efforts, a lack of awareness about heating and cooling events in the data center, an inability to co-ordinate responses through clashing protocols between different types of equipment and a general lack of temperature management effectiveness.

Having honed the art of solving energy problems, RLE has now created a formal set of services. These include the upgrade of monitoring and controls, improving operational protocols and increasing the efficiency of cooling operations. Before it rolls out these services, it is important to quantify the level of savings they will create, and whether the returns justify the investment, according to Swanner.

With national consumption rising, however, many utilities now offer incentives to encourage companies to make the effort to be become more efficient, said Swanner. The rationale of Future Resource Engineering will be to help companies realize they can make worthwhile efficiencies.

“Thanks to the numerous utility-approved incentive programs, there are many tangible motivations for data center owners and operators to make their facilities energy efficient,” said Swanner.

Swanner promised Future Resource Engineering can help companies to qualify their facilities for energy reduction incentives from the local utility. Data centers consumed an estimated 91 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2013, said Swanner. With the average US data center having a PUE of 1.7 (according to the Uptime Institute) there is a 70 percent margin of energy inefficiency to attack, according to FRE.