Data Center Partnership of the Better Buildings Challenge

William Lintner, U.S. Department of Energy

In 2011 President Obama launched a Better Building Initiative, spearheaded by former President Clinton and the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, to support job creation by catalyzing private sector investment in commercial and industrial building energy upgrades to make America's buildings 20 percent more efficient over the next decade, reducing energy costs for American businesses by nearly $40 billion.

The Better Building Challenge managed by the Department of Energy is part of the Better Building Initiative whereby the owners of assets, called Partners, formally pledge to increase their energy efficiency. Currently the Better Building Challenge includes commercial buildings, public buildings owned by states and municipalities, educational units including university campuses and school districts, and apartment buildings. The Department of Energy is developing the groundwork to expand the Challenge to include improving the energy efficiency of data centers.

Data centers are the buildings or spaces within buildings containing computers, network and storage devices. Over the past decade the electricity used to support data centers has grown at a rate of 10% a year and at last estimate comprised about 2% of the electricity use in the United States. The primary concern of data center owners and their IT operators is to ensure the availability of their data centers. Changes to current operating practices are often resisted because they are seen by the operators as compromising reliable operations. The presentation will discuss the Department of Energy's approach to introducing energy efficient best practices into the culture of the data center owners and their operators.

Learning Objectives

  • Concept and Progress of the Department of Energy's Better Buildings Challenge
  • The case for investing in projects to improve the energy efficiency of data centers
  • Concept and Structure of the Data Center Partnership

Biographies:

Mr. Will Lintner is a member of the Department of Energy's Federal Energy Management Program. He is currently leading programs related to energy efficiency in energy intensive facilities, including laboratories and data centers. He has played a pivotal role in various activities to improve the environmental performance of the facilities within the Federal government, the Department of Energy and the Department of the Navy. He has either managed or played a leading role in successful programs to cost effectively optimize operations through improved energy efficiency and water efficiency, adoption of sustainable practices and renewable energy, energy benchmarking, and private sector investment. He received a Presidential Award for Leadership in Federal Energy Management in 2007 for his contributions to providing energy savings through the DOE/EPA 21st Century Program. He was recognized by the Department of Energy in 2000 for his contributions toward reducing the department's own operating costs by over $100 million per year through investments in energy efficiency retrofit projects. Mr. Lintner is a professional engineer in the Commonwealth of Virginia. He is also a certified energy manager. He is a graduate of George Washington University and George Mason University.

 

Note: I2SL did not edit or revise abstract or biography text. Abstracts and biographies are displayed as submitted by the author(s).