Yesterday I was invited to a meeting to discuss the provision of IT Energy efficiency training, specifically in the Data Centres sector but also across the rest of IT by senior figures within Government.
In order to paint the impending energy landscape, our government spokesman advised that we are in, not to put to fine a point on it, serious do do.
As previously advised over the last 5 years by ourselves, there is a serious energy gap, this is being made worse by recent unexpected generation shutdowns to whit:
All Nuclear power stations will be shutdown and decommissioned by 2023, even if an extension to operating licences is agreed, they will still be shutdown by 2030. 2 are offline NOW, due to leaks.
The large combustion plant directive puts paid to coal fired power stations by limiting generation to specific levels and all plants to be closed within a period of time (7 stations are already in shutdown)
We are already importing over 10% of our energy needs from France and the Netherlands on a daily basis.
Our Grid needs a large amount of investment.
We face a situation similar to the energy crisis of 1973, when power cuts were the norm, only this time it will be worse.
In 1973, all we really has were lights, fridge and TV, perhaps a radio.
Today we have far far more electrical devices, not just in the home but in business, schools and shops, power cuts will be serious, even after the power comes back on will your systems?
Anyway, enough of the doom, the key to solving the problem is to reduce energy consumption, and this is what the training programme will attempt to achieve.
The training will be split into 4 stages, the first will be targeted to everyone who uses energy, everyone, and will be online.
The second stage will be specific to your organisation, the little things you can do that will save energy and cost.
The third stage will be more prescriptive and be focused on energy efficiency in key industrial sectors, one being IT/Data Centres, others may be retail, water industries, industrial processes etc.
The last stage will be executive oversight, ensuring that the management suite understand, monitor and manage the implementation of energy efficiency measures throughout their companies.
We've been asked to assist in the development of specific IT energy efficiency training programmes with our partners DCA and other DCA members and I will report on this once I have more news (Probably in November)
One thing I really should say is that energy prices will rise by between 20-30% in 2015.
As many of you are aware we only deal with Green IT and Energy Efficiency for Data Centres and have done for 5 years so we are well placed to deal with your queries and can provide other goods and services to reduce overall IT energy consumption.
