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energy saving opportunities

Cooling Embedded Data Centers – How To, and Not To

By Energy Rant One Comment
I recently reviewed an energy colonoscopy report aimed at saving energy for a small hospital’s data center – an embedded data center. Many building types can have substantial embedded data center loads including schools, office buildings, banks, and government. Connected data center loads vary from a few kilowatts to perhaps 50 kW. You can do your own research on energy saving opportunities in data centers. Here is one from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab that covers fourteen energy-saving opportunities, but it’s missing one: the giant canacorn custom measure that exists for nearly every embedded data center. My point in this post…
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performance contracting

Performance Contracting – Getting it Right; Avoiding #1 Matches

By Energy Rant 2 Comments
Per the Energy Services Coalition, energy service companies (ESCOs) that deliver energy savings performance contracts do the following: Identify and evaluate energy-saving opportunities Develop designs and specifications for construction Manage the project to installation and monitoring Arrange financing Train staff and provide ongoing services Guarantee savings will cover all project costs What’s not to like?A band of demons staked out in the contract details. I was reminded of this by this noteworthy article published in Buildings magazine. After discussing the author’s points, I will add plenty of my own guardrails to protect energy users from derailing over the cliff into…
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Soothsayer: Analyze This

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Renewable Energy, Sustainability No Comments
How many times have you read "we can create 40 million jobs and reduce our energy consumption by 90% if only we did x, y, and z."  Lester in this article says by 2035 we can double our fuel economy.  Well I should hope so!  Lester is actually one guy that is conservative in his estimates/goals.  David Goldstein in the same article says we can decrease our energy consumption by 88% by 2050.  Now where does he or any other egghead come up with these numbers? I had to laugh out loud regarding the results of an energy efficiency potential…
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