FuelCell Delivers Units Pacific Missile Range on Kauai

FuelCell Energy, Inc. announced that it had sold a DFC300 power plant to provide electric power at an isolated naval base in Hawaii — the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) on Kauai — where traditional energy sources are cost-prohibitive and logistically difficult to obtain. The Direct FuelCell (DFC) system is being purchased by FuelCell Energy’s distribution partner LOGANEnergy. LOGAN will own and operate the plant, supplying electricity to PMRF, a U.S. Navy base. The DFC300 plant will provide approximately 36% of PMRF’s power, and is scheduled for installation by September of 2009. The DFC300 will be used to generate electricity for baseload power while the high-grade heat it produces will be processed through an adsorption  chiller and used for air conditioning.

Governors Plan to Deploy Energy Efficient Computers in States
The National Governors Association (NGA) announced an innovative clean energy partnership between the NGA Chair's Initiative Securing a Clean Energy Future (SCEF) and the Climate Savers Computing Initiative (CSCI), founded by Google and Intel, to spur deployment of more energy-efficient computers and servers in state offices and agencies. By joining forces, these groups believe states can achieve up to a 50 percent reduction in current energy consumption from state-owned computing equipment over the next four years. As co-chairs of the SCEF Initiative, Gov. Pawlenty and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius will be the first governors to commit their states to this partnership and will be sending a letter to all governors encouraging them to join the program as well.
Under the terms of the agreement, these states have committed to reducing energy consumption from a majority of their computing equipment by:
• Pledging to purchase high-efficiency computer equipment that meets or exceeds federal ENERGY STAR ratings
• Optimizing existing computer systems by educating employees about more efficient and effective computer power management strategies, such as better using hibernation and sleep modes
• Ensuring in subsequent years states purchase computing equipment with increasing levels of efficiency.
State governments across the country use significant amounts of computer equipment, said SCEF co-chair Gov. Sebelius.

After experiencing a downtime event on November 13th, Rackspace and its President and CEO Lanham Napier have aggressively tackled the problem of communicating with its customers and others about the causes of the downtime and steps taken to prevent further incidents. 

Rackspace reported that it had deployed more 100 staffers after mechanical failure caused intermittent service problems on early Sunday morning, November 12th. R epeated resets of the chillers in the aftermath of a transformer disabled by a truck accident forced Rackspace to take some servers off line. Company communications with customers began almost immediately, and postings to its web site are dated approximately 6 hours after the more extensive outage.

In the continued series of posts Napier says, "I've been doing my best to talk with and apologize to every customer who has contacted me directly. And understandably, there were a lot of customers. For those of you I haven't spoken with yet, please watch the video on this page."

Please visit Rackspace's website to see the entire remarkable change of posts, Napier's video, and a timeline.

Survey Finds Most European Companies Implement Green Data Centers

A new survey from Digital Realty Trust, Inc. suggests that Europe will see rapid growth in new data center facilities within the next 2 years and that green solutions will be a very important element of this building cycle.

Specific results include:

    •    More than 80 percent of respondents have plans to expand their data centers.
    •    18 percent plan to expand their data center in the very near term (within the next 12 months).
    •    67 percent plan to expand their data centers within the next 24 months.
    •    15 percent of respondents are in the planning stages for data center expansion that will happen more than 24 months from now.
    •    Of the study participants who are planning data center expansions, 79 percent plan to expand in two or more locations,
    •    The average size of the planned expansions is approximately 1,000 square meters
    •    Disaster recovery initiatives were cited as the leading reason for expansions, but the need for additional network connectivity, upgraded cooling, more raised floor area, additional power, and new applications were also cited as key drivers for expansion plans.

The study also found that nearly 60 percent of companies have developed a green strategy that will impact their future data center decisions, and 74 percent of companies expect virtualization to reduce their space requirements, but they estimate this reduction to be 20 percent or less.
 

BNP Media Editors Support JCI Teams Program

Johnson Controls, Inc. announced that four students of Carnegie Mellon are the first-place winners in its open letter writing competition called Tomorrow’s Energy Ambassadors, Managers and Scholars (TEAMS). The contest challenged students to demonstrate their awareness of important energy and sustainability issues by challenging the field of presidential candidates to clarify their own positions on the topic. The students’ winning letter appears as a full page ad in the November 20th Pittsburgh and Washington, DC, regional editions of USA Today.

In addition to having its letter published in USA Today, Johnson Controls will present the Carnegie Mellon team with a $10,000 check for the school’s scholarship fund. The team also will receive a $2,500 grant from Johnson Controls and will be invited guests at the 2008 Energy Efficiency Forum in Washington DC. Second and third place teams will receive grants in the amounts or $1,500 and $1,000, respectively.  
Placing second in the competition was the team from Georgia Institute of Technology.  The letter winning third place came from students at the University of Montana.
Kevin Heslin, editor of Mission Critical ; Joe Mayton, editor of Sustainable Facility; and Michele Hucal, editor of Environmental Design + Construction, were among six media judges.

New Technologies

Falcon Electric's 8 and 10-kVA UPS scales up to 40 kVA for industrial and process control applications. The FN Series double-conversion on-line UPS expand the family's range up to 40 kVA. Users have the choice of scaling from 3 to 24 kVA or with this new model release, scale from 8 to 40kVA in the same compact footprint as the FN Series 6 kVA unit. The FN Series models achieve many technical milestones including a faster processor utilizing digital signal processing (DSP) technology, thereby improving performance, capability and reliability. An FN system can be configured using individual 8 and 10kVA models, providing up to 40 kVA capacity or to 30kVA with N+1 redundancy.

Panduit introduced a 23-in. deep 4 Post Rack System that fits within a 24 by 24-in. floor tile to maximize data center real estate. The 4 Post Rack System combines the stability of a cabinet with the accessibility of an open rack for maximum flexibility when designing a data center layout. The system facilitates an optimum cable management solution, enhancing the scalability and manageability of a network. Independent adjustable front and rear mounting rails accept a wide variety of active equipment for added design flexibility. Paint piercing washers fully electrically bond rack components simplifying the grounding process. The system is part of a complete rack and cable management solution from Panduit.

Designed as a performance upgrade of the Model 2000 automatic transfer control, the Model 2000 PLUS provides the capability to control all operational functions of Russelectric ATSs plus the ability to monitor key power data.  The microprocessor-based control system allows remote monitoring using industry-standard, open-architecture communications protocol through a Modbus RTU communications network or through an ethernet network (with a converter). Data can be viewed using customer-provided software or Russelectric Windows-based SCADA. With the web server communications option, the control provides Internet-based remote monitoring and reporting. The Model 2000 PLUS reports all key power data — metered readings and computed values — by means of high-speed serial communications. 

Emerson Unveils Details for Its AdaptiveXchange 2007

AdaptiveXchange 2007, to be held November 29-30 at the Baltimore Convention Center, will provide an interactive forum for IT, data center, and facilities managers to collaboratively identify best practices in managing the vital data centers that power today’s online economy.
To register visit AdaptiveXchange 2007
This year’s event, themed “Way to be Ready,” features 28 technical sessions, 85,000 square feet of exhibit space, and an industry panel on practical approaches to reducing data center energy consumption.
In his keynote address at AdaptiveXchange 2007, Bob Bauer, group vice president, Emerson, will discuss “The Dynamic Data Center – Mastering Constant, Unpredictable Change.” His review of the major issues affecting data centers of all sizes will reveal strategies and technologies that create dynamic data centers capable of quickly responding to change. A panel of industry experts will explore the impact of rising energy costs on data center operations.  Additionally, TechUniversity sessions will analyze specific technologies and practices, such as managing critical data center needs within the rack and flexible architectures for UPS systems.
The technical presentations are supported by the AdaptiveXpo, a showcase of leading technologies in simulated data center, computer room, telecommunications and remote network environments. 
For more information about AdaptiveXchange 2007, visit Liebert.