SINGAPORE--American Power Conversion (APC) has launched a new facility as a testbed for customers in Asia to design and operate data centers using energy efficient principles and technology.
The Singapore facility is APC's first such initiative outside of the United States to showcase energy efficiency in data centers, Laurent Vernerey, president and CEO of APC, said Thursday at the site's official opening.
Making data centers energy-efficient |
The way data centers are designed, managed and operated is currently in the early stages of change, noted Vernerey, who is also the executive vice president of the critical power and cooling services unit of Schneider Electric, the parent company of APC.
"Data centers today are still being operated blindly--it's like driving without a dashboard," he said.
Having built data centers the traditional way for the last 20 to 30 years, many owners or managers are not savvy to energy-efficient techniques and are "skeptical" toward the realization of lower energy consumption, explained Vernerey.
The new set-up is part of a S$2 million (US$1.4 million) Energy Efficient Solutions Center, where customers can see for themselves the concepts and test out the technology before actual deployment.
The company plans to set up a similar facility in China within the next 12 to 18 months, said Vernerey.
Asia, noted Vernerey, is the fastest-growing region for APC. In 2007, the region grew at over 20 percent, compared to about 12 percent globally. Going forward, he expects Asia to grow about two times as fast as that globally.
APC is not the only player tackling energy efficiency in data centers. Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Sun Microsystems have also announced energy-saving initiatives over the past few months.
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