The US Environmental Protection Agency revealed last August in its "Report to Congress on Server and Data Center Energy Efficiency" that data centers consumed about 60 billion kWh in 2006. This accounted for approximately 1.5 percent of total US electricity consumption that year.

The consumption of energy by data centers and servers has doubled in the past five years and is expected to nearly double again in the next five years to more than 100 billion kWh, costing about $7.4 billion a year.

In an effort to manage its own energy consumption, data center operator 365 Main (365main.com) joined Pacific Gas and Electric Company's (pge.com) Critical Peak Pricing program.

This voluntary program is designed to reduce energy load during the summer to avoid the chance of an energy emergency. As incentive, the utility company offers seasonal discounts to single-building customers that lower or shift their energy usage away from peak periods.

"Last year, we reduced energy by up to eight percent which equals out to about 7400 hours of reduction," says Miles Kelly, VP of corporate strategy for 365 Main. "That energy savings is the largest single reduction of any of PG&E's individual building customers, so we're very proud of that."

365 Main reduced its power consumption during CPP events, which contributed to the company saving $54,000 in utility costs at its San Francisco, California facility. The company says it saved a total of 7,477kWh during CPP occurrences in 2007 and lowered power usage below its energy-consumption baseline.

CPP events are normally activated by temperature but PG&E can also set them off as warranted by extreme system conditions. During a CPP event, electricity rates for PG&E customers are higher than average during the 72 annual CPP event hours.

In exchange, electric rates are lower than normal on non-event days during the summer, which starts May 1 and ends October 31. PG&E alerts CPP customers by noon on the weekday before a CPP event.

"We actually schedule the testing of our generators weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly," says Kelly. "We adjusted the testing of those generators to the actual peak period. We take one of the 10 generators, which are being continually run in our facilities, off the grid during a testing period."

In the past, 365 Main has helped reduced energy consumption by developing green data centers, including its recently announced data center in Newark, California.

365 Main has participated in several other environmentally friendly initiatives and organizations. Last month it joined IBM in a panel discussion at the inaugural Hollywood Goes Green conference.

The company is also a member of the Green Grid (thegreengrid.org), and says it is the first data center operator to be fully compliant with the building certification system introduced by non-profit organization US Green Building Council (usgbc.org).

Along with the PG&E CPP program, Kelly says 365 Main will continue to develop and operate energy efficient data centers, as well as play an integral role in helping the industry reduce its overall energy consumption.

"This represents yet another example of our commitment to energy efficiency," says Kelly, "and it's our goal to not just have it be part of a popular marketing scheme but to have it be a fundamental part of the way we operate our business. We want to be associated with leadership in energy efficiency and not just jumping on the bandwagon."