Energy Star to Hold Data Center Rating Teleconference
Energy Star announced details of a teleconference for the purpose of developing an Energy Star infrastructure rating for data centers. This meeting is a followup to the December 18, 2007, industry meeting. The teleconference will be held Wednesday, February 13, 2008 at 2:00 pm Eastern time. The conference is scheduled to last 90 minutes. Registration via the Internet is required to participate.
EPA’s goals for the meeting are to:
    •    Share EPA’s draft template for collecting key data elements based on feedback from industry
    •    Outline a timeline and progress milestones for the data collection process
Click to see more information about and register for this session. Once you have registered for the session, you will receive an email message confirming your registration. This message will provide the information that you need to join the session.

The Green Grid Urges Data Center Community to Gain Efficiencies
The Green Grid held its first Technical Forum on February 6th before an audience of approximately 300 industry leaders, press, and other observers. The one-day session provided a lead-in for a members only meeting held the next day. The Technical Forum included presentations from member companies, government agencies, and other groups that comprised a loosely knit message about the status of related industry efforts to develop and finalize metrics and techniques as well as a discussion of possible next steps. The meeting also highlighted some of The Green Grid's efforts in the past year.
The Green Grid Forum included discussions about the future direction of energy-efficient data centers while previewing projects-in-progress, which include:
•    Data Center Rating System Panel – industry discussion on data center ratings with a number of parties, including The Green Grid, California Energy Commission, European Commission, US Department of Energy and US Environmental Protection Agency who have started working on data center energy efficiency rating systems
•    Data Center Productivity – highlighting The Green Grid’s progress in developing metrics for data centers that relate useful work performed within data centers to the resources required to complete that work.

The Green Grid has not released any information about its Members Meeting the following day.

EYP Mission Critical Facilities to Design New NCSA Data Center 
EYP Mission Critical Facilities (EYP MCF) has been selected as the lead design firm for the National Center for Supercomputing Applications’ (NCSA) new petascale computing building at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. This facility will be home to the world's most powerful "leadership-class" supercomputer, supported by Track 1 supercomputer funding from the National Science Foundation. This "petascale" system is expected to make arithmetic calculations at a sustained rate in excess of 1,000-trillion operations per second (a "petaflop" per second) to help investigators solve some of the world's most challenging scientific and engineering research problems. The supercomputer, called “Blue Waters,” will be 500 times more powerful than today's typical supercomputer. Expected to go online in 2011, the system may be used to study complex processes like the interaction of the Sun's coronal mass ejections with the Earth's magnetosphere and ionosphere; the formation and evolution of galaxies in the early universe; and understanding the chains of reactions that occur with living cells. EYP MCF had previously provided consulting, programming, and schematic design services for the new HPC building.
EYP MCF and NCSA are co-hosting a workshop, entitled “Building the Data Center of the Future: Effective Energy-Efficient Design,” to be held on February 13 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. EYP MCF Managing Principal, Bill Kosik, PE, CEM, LEED AP, will present on the topic of  “What's in Store for Next Generation High-Performance Data Centers.” This workshop will bring together experts from research centers, the IT industry, and consulting firms to explore the challenges involved in planning, designing, constructing, monitoring and maintaining these supercomputing facilities for the future.
 

News Briefs

Cummins Power Generation Inc. launched a new line of generator sets rated 30 to 38 kVA at 50 Hz and 27 to 35 kW at 60 Hz. The new generator sets provide an economical and reliable power solution to a variety of prime and standby applications for small businesses and the telecommunications market. The generator set and all major components like the engine, alternator, control, fuel tank and enclosure are designed and built by Cummins Power Generation.  They all meet stringent international standards resulting in exceptional power delivery and durability. The generator sets come with market leading PowerCommand 1.1 digital control as standard, providing total system integration and proven reliability in generator set monitoring, control and protection. An intuitive operator interface panel, integrated control functionality and advanced overcurrent protection are key benefits.

Eaton Corporation introduced its new Pulsar uninterruptible power supply (UPS) family. Sold under the MGE Office Protection Systems brand, the advanced double-conversion, on-line systems offer optimum power quality and availability for protecting the most sophisticated network, telephony, medical and industrial applications. The Pulsar family meets the higher power requirements of today's high-density servers with precise power conversion and compatibility with next-generation power factor correction (PFC) power supplies. The Pulsar UPS systems deliver pure power combined with complete network integration software and communication connectivity, providing a comprehensive, easy-to-integrate solution for protecting IT systems.