Green Energy Storage maker gets $15 million

News.com sites Venture Wire that Deeya received a second round of financing for $15 Million.  What is Deeya Energy?  Their web site has banner ads for temperature insensitive, highly scalable, eco friendlfy, economical, energy storage 2Kw  to 2Mw (2 to 24 hours), fast charging, UPS, inverter systems, 7 year battery life

Deeya Energy is a clean technology start-up developing and manufacturing electrochemical energy storage systems based on its proprietary L-Cell technology. Deeya L-Cells have much better charging and discharging performance while being much cheaper than other batteries. Besides, the L-Cells contain environmentally benign materials and are infinitely recyclable, as opposed to the kinds of materials used in other batteries, such as lead-acid.

"We are really excited about the broad opportunities that Deeya's technology can address, including peak-off-peak Load Shifting, renewable backup for the global solar and wind rollouts and the UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supplies) market, particularly for developing regions like India where power availability and quality are significant issues," said Raj Atluru, Managing Director, DFJ.

Read more

Energy Efficiency Survey by Cassatt

Got a copy of the Cassatt Energy Efficiency Survey.  Highlights are as follows:

From the responses we received from IT professionals and facilities managers we learned several interesting facts:

  • 63% of you are either working on a data center energy-efficiency project now or expect to within the next year
  • 43% of you have a data center that is within 25% of its maximum power capacity
  • 61% of you are aware that the EPA recommends turning off idle servers to save energy, but over 30% say you don’t know how many servers are idle at any given time
  • Server power management software is the energy saving strategy that large companies selected most frequently as their next step for the future (29%)
Read more

UK Citizens don't believe Sustainability Commitment in Public Sector

Found this interesting research conducted by British Telecom on efforts made by the public sector to act sustainable, and perceptions of its citizens.  This makes a good point in how difficult it is to market your green efforts.

100 per cent of organisations* in the sector believe that operating sustainably is important to their reputation. However, only three per cent of citizens** think today’s organisations are honest about what they are doing to become more environmentally or socially responsible, with a third believing organisations exaggerate what they are doing.

Employees** across the public sector displayed similar scepticism. The research found that 43 per cent of employees say their employer is currently doing too little to improve sustainability and nearly a quarter (24 per cent) do not believe that the organisation that they work for is environmentally and socially responsible. Almost one in five (19 per cent) believes that their employer only takes action when forced to by external pressures.

Read more

Definition of Green - InfoWorld

The Definition of Green is on my list of things to write about.  InfoWorld's Ted Samson writes his definition, and provides good points.

A couple of final thoughts on this subject: First, if a vendor comes to your door hawking what it deems a green product, be sure to ask just what makes it so green.

Second, bear in mind that a product deemed green today will be considered wasteful and eco-unfriendly tomorrow. Technological advancement coupled with relativity is funny that way.

Finally -- and this is a point I'll keep making until my fingers ooze (the blogging equivalent to the expression "talking until I'm blue in the face"): Green products alone simply can't make your company green. A blueprint for long-term sustainability is a must, and the products you employ are but a piece of the puzzle. Deploying virtualization in your datacenter may very well help you make better use of your resources in the short- or midterm. It may also reduce your company's carbon footprint. But you most certainly need to plan beyond that for the sake of your organization's future prosperity -- as well as for the sake of the environment, if that is, indeed, a concern for your company.

This definition fits well with another post.

Read more

Orbitz's Green Data Center Commitment

In researching what companies have made strategic commitments to be green, I found Orbitz efforts interesting in that they had a corporate PR message along with an article about how they are trying to go carbon neutral in their data centers. These articles are old, but are an indicator of their commitment.

Orbitz announced its Earth Day efforts, and corporate commitment on April 19, 2007.

A recent Orbitz survey* found that more than half of Americans feel the U.S. tourist industry is lagging when it comes to being "eco-friendly."

This reconfirmed the Orbitz Worldwide efforts already under way, in offices from Chicago to Sydney to London, to curb its own environmental impact, and the development, from the inside-out of eco-friendly travel tools and environmentally-focused content on-site.

"Today, Orbitz invites travelers to join our own employees around the world in making a difference when you travel," said Steve Barnhart, CEO and president of Orbitz Worldwide, a division of Travelport Ltd (www.travelport.com). "Orbitz Worldwide is committed to being a vocal proponent within the travel community, working to offset the impact our industry has on the environment, so we're enthusiastic about our partnership with a highly respected organization like CarbonFund.org and the launch of Version 1.0 of our eco-microsite."

Computerworld has an article about Orbitz's Green Data Center using Nuclear power

Orbitz, a Chicago travel Web site, has embraced environmentalism as a corporate strategy. Now Orbitz CIO Bahman Koohestani faces the challenge of trying to make the company's electricity-hungry IT operations green.

Koohestani is attacking this challenge in several ways. He's taking his IT operations carbon neutral; he's embracing server consolidation; and, he's using an aggressive technology refresh cycle to buy more energy-efficient computer equipment.

Orbitz has two large data centers in the Chicago area: Both are powered by Exelon, the Chicago area electric utility, which generates about 80% of its electricity from nuclear power plants.

Read more