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July 22, 2014

Uncovering Funding Incentives for Your Data Center

By TMCnet Special Guest
Jim Stark, P.E., Manager, Engineering and Construction

If your data center is not making you money, it is likely generating expenses, but there are ways to keep costs down that you may not know about.  Power companies like Con Edison, National Grid and NSTAR are working with companies like Electronic Environments Corporation (EEC) so data centers can take advantage of cash incentive programs.



For instance, if your data center is located in one of the five boroughs of New York City or Westchester, Con Edison offers two opportunities for incentives:

1. Financial Incentives for Energy Efficiency Upgrades: provide funding to offset the costs of energy-saving IT/data center measures.

2. Incentives to Complete Technical Assistance Studies: energy-related engineering studies of data centers.

Working either directly with data centers or IT/Data center companies, Con Edison helps to put together a project scope and estimates the potential energy savings and incentive from implementation.  Based on the first year of projected energy savings, Con Edison offers $0.16/kWh incentive using the following formula:

[Pre-installation kWh – Post-installation kWh usage] x Incentive Rate = Cash Incentive

Implementing such projects often results in significant utility bill savings and, when combined with the incentive, makes most data center projects a wise investment to pursue. It is important to note that Con Edison does not offer retroactive incentives, so it is recommended to get in contact with them before starting any work. For more information, please visit: https://www.conedci.com/DataCenters.aspx.

The money saved each year with Con Edison enables most companies to breakeven on their data center projects in less than two years. However, note that Con Edison does not offer retroactive incentives, so it is in important to get in contact with them before the start of your data center project.

If you are located in Rhode Island or anywhere in MA where National Grid is the electricity provider, they provide a wide range of incentives for data center projects, including: HVAC UPS and rectifier set improvements. However, their program generally does not offer incentives for projects that already have payback periods of two years or less. Incentives are given out as a proportion of savings and usually will cover up to 50 percent of costs. National Grid also offers reviews of potential undertakings and thermal mapping of larger facilities with cooling distribution concerns at no cost.

Another Boston-area power company providing incentives is NSTAR, which focuses on three data center categories: new construction, retrofitting and facility assessments. Like Con Edison and National Grid, NSTAR offers financial incentives for energy-saving projects, but they also add value due to their engineering expertise, benchmarking tools and partnerships with engineers and vendors.

To learn more on uncovering funding incentives for your data center, watch the EEC webinar ‘How Utility Incentive Programs Affect Equipment Upgrades’ by visiting http://www.eecnet.com/Resources/Videos/#incentive.

To schedule a free consultation or if you have questions on utility incentive programs for data centers, please contact an EEC representative at (508) 229-1404 or [email protected].

For more information on EEC, visit www.eecnet.com.




Edited by Adam Brandt
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