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A Holistic Look at Sustainable IT Management
Posted By Michael Locatis
In these times of great fiscal challenges, the Department of Energy is leveraging innovative, cost-effective approaches to advance sustainability initiatives and accelerate data center and cloud adoption. Through an Energy Savings Performance Contract (ESPC) model, the Department is leading the way in IT infrastructure energy cost savings, efficiency and modernization. This ESPC facilitates the consolidation of data centers and server rooms at our headquarters in Washington, D.C., and our COOP facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as well as the transformation of our IT infrastructure to a more energy efficient and responsive computing environment, while reducing capital costs. This is the first time the federal government has used an ESPC for a data center consolidation project.
Traditionally, ESPCs and Utility Energy Services Contracts (UESC) have been used for facility infrastructure projects, such as lighting efficiency, chiller plant replacements and low-water fixture upgrades. At the Department of Energy, we are implementing an alternative financing contract for IT infrastructure transformation that embraces the significant potential savings associated with these projects. Through a partnership with Lockheed Martin, this ESPC project will focus on IT modernization initiatives geared at reducing energy consumption and streamlining operations through virtualization, cloud services, mobile computing, among other IT-based applications.
In addition, we are exploring further opportunities to utilize ESPCs and UESCs to meet the electronic stewardship and data center goals in the Department’s Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan (SSPP) and the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative.
This is truly taking a holistic look at sustainable IT management across the Department and furthering our commitment to streamlining operations, reducing energy consumption and saving taxpayers money.
Mike Locatis is the Chief Information Officer for the Department of Energy.
