Energy-efficient in the office and data center: This is how companies can save electricity - Green IT

Energy efficient in the office and data center

January 23, 2023 at 7:00 am | Jutta Gräfensteiner/wg

Due to the energy crisis, companies must use every opportunity to reduce their electricity costs. They should focus their attention primarily on the data centers and offices.

Private individuals have been thinking about how to react to rising heating costs for a long time. This ranges from turning down the thermostat to wearing warmer sweaters. But for employees in companies, grandma’s blankets are hardly an option. Nevertheless, companies can also save energy in their offices in an intelligent way, for example by promoting home office and hybrid work as part of virtual collaboration.

In addition, they should check the power consumption of their data center and corporate network. Here, too, a great deal of unnecessary demand can be avoided. Best practices help to save 20 to 50 percent in energy costs, depending on the area.

Optimizing heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems

The first thought when it comes to saving energy is usually towards radiators. Of course, companies can simply turn the thermostats down a few degrees. However, this may lead to employees turning up the heating even more so that there is no effect. It is also not possible to adapt clothing everywhere. Therefore, companies should install sensors in the offices to automatically ensure appropriate temperature and humidity conditions while minimizing energy waste. For example, some well-established endpoints for video telephony already contain such sensors.

The same applies to ventilation and air conditioning systems in the coming summer: Sensors for temperature and air quality automatically open and close the windows or cool the air when the set limit values are reached.

Save by switching off

If there is no employee in the office, the IT infrastructure does not have to be active either. Devices such as access points or printers, as well as lighting and air conditioning, can be switched off automatically outside of business hours. For example, if 1,000 access points in a large company only run twelve hours a day instead of 24, this saves around 43,500 kWh per year. However, the cybersecurity components must of course be on at all times.

If there are no fixed office hours, the devices can remain switched off when nobody is on site. Especially in times of hybrid work, there is not always someone in the office. In this case, motion detectors can detect when a person enters the building and a specific room to activate heating and IT infrastructure. By collecting and analyzing IT usage and consumption metrics, organizations can intelligently configure and automate systems to optimize energy savings. Because when the night watchman comes, the WLAN does not have to be switched on.

Use Power over Ethernet

Many IT devices can be supplied with power via Ethernet cabling. This not only increases flexibility and avoids installation costs for sockets, but can also reduce energy costs. Because only one cable is required.

PoE (Power over Ethernet) technology can be expanded with the introduction of UPoE+ (Universal Power over Ethernet). Using a DC microgrid with UPOE+ avoids AC to DC conversion losses. In this way, companies can often achieve 45 percent greater energy efficiency.