The Green Grid, a global consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems, today announced, in association with DatacenterDynamics, the winners of the Most-Improved Data centre Energy Efficiency Award - Japan for 2010 which honors businesses and organizations that contribute to the improvement of energy efficiency in data centers operating in Japan.

A judging panel comprised of representatives from The Green Grid, DatacenterDynamics and The Green Grid liaison organizations Green IT Promotion Council (GIPC) and Japan Data Center Council (JDCC) presented the Grand Prix to Hitachi, Ltd., the Performance Award to Fujitsu Limited and the Special Award to IDC Frontier Inc., as follows:

• Grand Prix: Hitachi Project name: Significant improvement of data-center energy efficiency
  
  Hitachi was awarded the Grand Prix as a result of receiving the highest overall marks in the competition by attempting, as well as achieving over a five-year period, a remarkable 50% reduction in energy consumption in its data centers compared to FY2007 levels. Hitachi implemented innovative projects for energy consumption management, real-time reporting of power usage effectiveness (PUE), air-flow visualization and installation of an operating system linked to external temperatures.
  
  
• Performance Award: Fujitsu Project name: Continuous monitoring of data energy-use trends and formation of energy-saving work groups
  
  Fujitsu was awarded for its cross-sectional approach to energy efficiency, which combined facility engineering and the development of new air conditioning technology for immediate improvement of PUE. Fujitsu improved the energy efficiency of its IT facilities and air conditioners through measures including the use of PUE calculations and graphs to better visualize the state of its energy consumption.
  
  
• Special Award: IDC Frontier Project name: Energy savings through improved PUE in modular data centers with large external air conditioners
  
  IDC Frontier was awarded for continuous efforts to significantly improve energy efficiency through best practices, such as the adoption of large external air conditioners, cold/heat separation techniques, blast friction minimization and the use of modular data centers for increased energy efficiency.

The DatacenterDynamics Award developed in collaboration with The Green Grid encourages businesses and organizations in Japan to measure and improve data center energy efficiency. Judging criteria emphasized the candidates’ ongoing efforts to improve energy efficiency, including continuity of measurement, analysis, recommendations and implementation measures, rather than focusing solely on energy efficiency metrics such as Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) and Data Center infrastructure Efficiency (DCiE).

“In this inaugural year of the DatacenterDynanics award developed in collaboration with The Green Grid, we were pleased to receive applications from companies representing the IT, Telco, financial and manufacturing sectors, which will help to raise awareness of outstanding initiatives to improve the energy efficiency of data centers,” said Eiji Taguchi, chairman of the awards committee and chairman of the Japan Technical Work Group of the Green Grid. “The candidate companies, recognizing that green initiatives are crucial for business sustainability, are committed to contributing to society by addressing environmental issues throughout their organizations. The award program is an important way to acknowledge efforts to raise data center energy efficiency using best practices and measurement.”