Usage-based Power Pricing, enables Green Behaviors in CRG West Colo DCs

Data Center Knowledge has a post on CRG's press announcement for Usage-Based Power Pricing.

CRG West is implementing usage-based power pricing at its new data centers in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Northern Virginia and the San Francisco Bay Area. The power pricing model, based on actual utilization, will benefit colocation customers by offering savings to those who reduce their IT electrical loads.

With the installation of Branch Circuit Monitoring (BCM) technology at seven of its 10 data centers, CRG West can provide usage-based pricing for AC power to even single-cabinet colocation customers. In addition, the BCM technology improves upon CRG West’s ability to manage and monitor power consumption at the data center, enabling customers to pay only for the power they consume and providing the visibility into load management that helps customers increase their uptime.

CRG West previously charged a flat monthly fee per circuit for breakered power capacity, which meant that customers would often pay for capacity they aren't using. Under the new model, customers can reduce their bills by turning off hardware that isn’t in use during off-hours or by purchasing hardware that is more efficient. Coming soon, CRG West will also offer customers the ability to monitor their power draws by circuit.

The CRG press announcement is here with a few points on energy efficiency.

With the installation of Branch Circuit Monitoring (BCM) technology at seven of its ten data centers, CRG West can provide usage-based pricing for AC power to even single cabinet colocation customers. In addition, the BCM technology improves upon CRG West’s ability to manage and monitor power consumption at the data center, enabling customers to pay only for the power they consume and providing the visibility into load management that helps customers increase their uptime.

Customers can reap the benefits of this technology by turning off hardware that isn’t in use during off-hours or by purchasing hardware that is more efficient; thereby significantly reducing their electricity expenses. Coming soon, CRG West will also offer customers the ability to monitor their power draws by circuit.

Already an industry leader in green data center design and construction, CRG West also focuses upon providing the information and tools our customers can use to enable them to manage energy consumption and costs more efficiently. Following the deployment of our award-winning, energy-efficient closed-loop cooling design, CRG West’s BCM technology is another example of innovative leadership in the industry. CRG West expects the colocation industry to adopt usage-based pricing and visibility as its standard within the coming years.

We should be a standard practice at many colo facilities. The enterprise data centers in general will move slower.  At an Uptime Institute presentation, there was actually a company which removed their metering system, because they didn't want to deal with the support issues when users challenged the power charges.

Comments

[tinkthank]

This would be more great if they were actual savings to be realized. However, CRG, like other commercial hosting providers, relies on under-utilization and oversubscription to remain profitable. Their revenue per datacenter has to at least remain constant, ideally increase, to cope with rising costs. Customers who have heavy power utilization will likely see their monthly costs increase. I believe this will even impact responsible heavy use customers who shed load at off peak as there is a very real demand cost from both the utility and for the infrastructure.