In January, E Source hosted a web conference with the California Energy Commission’s Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) division called Office Plug Loads: Energy Use and Savings Opportunities. This web conference, with presenters from New Buildings Institute (NBI) and Ecova, attracted several attendees and plenty of follow-up questions on related topics.

To the 200-plus attendees, thank you! You were exceptionally engaged, contributing insightful comments throughout the entire 75 minutes. One attendee even asked a question through chat before our presenters started speaking!

The web conference quickly grabbed my attention when we got to slide 9. Cathy Higgins of NBI showed attendees how much of the plug-load total consists of server loads. If you follow the yellow arrow, that small portion of the blue 30 percent pie slice excludes server loads, leaving the rest to the data needs of the offices in this study.

As you can imagine, we started getting server-efficiency questions right away. However, the presenters purposefully focused their research on the other plug-load sources, per the guidelines of their research study and analysis.

As a follow-up to so many attendee questions about server loads, David Weightman from the Energy Commission asked me to share a recent report from the Energy Commission and the U.S. Department of Energy that explores data center efficiency: Recovery Act: Federspiel Controls (now Vigilent) and State of California Department of General Services Data Center Energy Efficient Cooling Control Demonstration.

Partly because of the popularity of the topic, E Source plans to host a web conference in April with the Energy Commission on this research conducted by Vigilent. The study includes an evaluation of eight California data centers that are equipped with an intelligent energy management system for monitoring and for energy-savings measurement.

I’m excited to hear from the presenters at Vigilent during this web conference. It’s usually a good sign when the stakeholders—in this case PIER and Vigilent—proactively call me about wanting to share their results with the public! It sounds like they have good news about retrofit solutions for data centers that we can learn from.

I also found several E Source resources on plug loads. If you’re an E Source member, check out these reports from our energy experts (access will vary by service):

• Energy Use of TV Technologies by Peter Criscione and Mary Horsey
• Wasting Away the Day: Video Game Energy Use by Essie Snell
• Saving Energy with Smart Strips by Essie Snell
• Electronic Plug Loads Keep on Growing: Results from the Residential Appliance and Equipment Survey By Alexandra Behringer
• Why Charging Mats May Not Be as Green as They Seem by Essie Snell
• Plug-Loads Programs: Results from an E Source Roundtable Discussion
• Finding the Phantom in Plug Loads
• Managing Office Plug Loads (PDF)
• Network Computer Power Management: Resource Guide