Assessing the financial value of projects developed in the context of an IT energy policy requires a few best practices:
1) analyze as much equipment as possible
Assessing a wide range of equipment helps make the project more appealing for decision-makers. Depending on the initial audit scope, it may be necessary to expand or extrapolate results over a larger scope.
2) evaluate all potential scenarios
Many different scenarios are available for energy-saving projects. It’s important to assess the savings generated by each scenario:
- energy management software (savings generated by night and weekend shutdown of office PCs)
- equipment update
- virtualization
- overhaul of IS architecture
- combination of several different solutions
3) assess indirect energy savings
For each of these scenarios, it’s also important to consider any potential indirect energy savings:
- optimizing the costs of managing IT equipment
- reduced cooling costs for IT infrastructure
- reduced CO2 emissions expressed in financial savings
4) perform post-launch analysis
After launching any energy savings project, it’s important to analyze actual energy savings in order to compare this figure with the project’s initial estimates. This will help validate and enact an effective IT energy policy.
For more information, see the other articles in this series:
- what are the energy challenges for IT?
- 4 ways to measure your IT energy consumption
- Green IT: no good scenarios without analyzing history
For even more detail, I recommend this white paper: Reducing the Energy Consumption of IT Equipment.
Alexandre
This post was originally published in French here.
image © denphumi - Fotolia.com
I'm a consultant in the sustainable development division of Orange Consulting, resonsible for our energy audit service. I'm interested in the intersection of sustainable development and information technology. I like to travel and discover other cultures' perspectives.