The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has announced that The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation and the University at Buffalo are the winners of its first annual New York State Data Center Energy Efficiency Leadership Award. The award, which was presented at the Uptime Institute Symposium, held May 17-19, in New York City, recognizes leadership in pursuing policies and projects that promote data center energy efficiency within New York State.

NYSERDA president and CEO Francis J. Murray said: "Data centers are an energy intensive industry that is an increasingly important sector in New York's economy. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation and the University at Buffalo have demonstrated exceptional leadership and vision in making their data centers more energy efficient. Their work serves as a model for this growing and important industry that will help create jobs throughout New York State."

Supported through multiple projects by $300,000 in NYSERDA funding and $495,000 of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding, the University at Buffalo integrated energy efficiency measures across all power systems, cooling systems, and server systems including dynamic measurement and power metering. As part of its initiative, UB replaced its existing high-performance computing servers with new high-efficiency models that not only conserve a significant amount of power and cooling, but also expand the scientific, engineering, and industrial outreach capabilities of the data center. The electric load these servers draw has been more than halved while doubling the processor capabilities. On top of its overall efficiency gains, the university is making information on its projects publically available athttp://nyserda.ccr.buffalo.edu/so that others might benefit.

Dr. Thomas Furlani, director of the Center for Computational Research in UB's Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences and Interim Associate Vice Provost for Information Technology, accepted the award for the University at Buffalo. He said, "We are thrilled to receive this award not only for the prestige and recognition it carries but more importantly for the strong commitment to energy conservation that it reflects on the part of UB. The success we have achieved to date and will achieve over the next year is directly attributable to NYSERDA and the strong leadership they provide in all areas of energy conservation, including importantly, data center energy conservation."

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation's (DTCC) initiatives resulted in significant energy efficiency gains while maintaining the high availability demands of their clients. Based in New York City, DTCC implemented several layers of metering and measuring techniques to identify and track power consumption. By measuring its consumption, DTCC was better able to match its cooling systems with the critical load of the facilities. DTCC also incorporated free cooling into its HVAC operations, something that is not always easily done in a metropolitan area like New York City. In addition, DTCC implemented operational measures such as power management of desktops and lighting controls to further reduce its energy consumption.

DTCC is owned by its principal users and operates on an at-cost basis. Its subsidiaries clear and settle nearly all U.S. market trades in equities, corporate and municipal bonds, government and mortgage-back securities, money market instruments, and over-the-counter derivatives. In 2009, the subsidiaries settled more than $1.48 quadrillion in securities transactions. DTCC's depository also provides custody and asset servicing for 3.5 million securities issues.

Stephen Wint, director of facilities, planning, and engineering for DTCC said, "It is an honor for DTCC to be recognized by NYSERDA. We believe reducing energy consumption is a global corporate responsibility, and making our data centers more energy efficient is an important step in that direction. Not only does it lower our carbon footprint, it also reduces our costs, which we can then pass on to our customers in the form of lower fees for our services."

NYSERDA's Industrial and Process Efficiency program has over $100 million available for similar manufacturing and data center energy productivity improvements that will help data centers reduce their energy costs.