Improve Building Energy Performance – Open Your Windows

Monday, November 9th, 2009 | Building Energy Performance

Two of the biggest players in the computer biz have latched on to a new technique for improving building energy performance – they are opening their windows.

According to the U.S. Energy Administration, America will spend about $345 billion for electricity this year.   ASHRAE (The American Society of Heating Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers) estimates about 3 percent of that amount – just over $10 billion — will be spent by and on data centers.

Microsoft and Google are keeping the business world safe for YouTube videos and E-Bay auctions — I mean spreadsheets and PowerPoints — by cooling thousands of servers with ambient air and reducing building energy costs in the process.

The two companies recently built data centers (Microsoft in Ireland and Google in Belgium) without chillers.  Using a concept called ‘free cooling’ (also know as opening the windows), they take advantage of the low ambient air temperatures in those two countries to keep thousands of servers cool.  For more info, click here.

We hope that those of you responsible for building energy performance here in the States will have cool days so that you can do the same thing.

 Rich Silverman
Goodway Blogging Team                                                                                           

Image Credit: Photo by Midom courtesy of Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons Attribution License

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Written by: Goodway Blogging Team

Tags: chillers, energy efficiency, Energy Saving Tips, energy savings

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