Green building professionals like Energy Optimizers, USA are using innovative design, new technologies and onsite renewable energy generation to reduce buildings’ energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.
Yet even after energy efficient lighting, solar photovoltaic systems, passive heating and other sustainable technology and design elements have been integrated into green building projects, these projects still need to draw electricity from the power grid. And the power they draw is primarily generated through the combustion of fossil fuels, which results in the release of greenhouse gases. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. buildings are responsible for 39 percent of the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions.
You may be unaware that the IT industry and it’s data centers and servers consume energy to both power and cool the technologies that make our lives and businesses run smoothly each day. At present, between 3 and 4 percent of all electricity (and the associated carbon emissions) used in the world goes to running data centers.
Energy Optimizers, USA is doing it’s part to reduce overall carbon emissions and build on our national power generation capabilities by hosting our website and its data on servers in a data center that has secured the Renewable Energy Credits* (RECs) necessary to mitigate the environmental impact of the data centers’ energy use. For those data center functions that use natural gas, steam or fuel oil onsite, our web design company has assured us that the hosting facility has secured carbon credits that provide a 130% offset to balance out greenhouse gas emissions associated with obtaining energy from fossil fuel sources of energy.
Using Energy Optimizers, USA’s Energy Management and Commissioning Services, our professionals have been able to ensure that not only are the technologies and design elements used in their projects green, but that their projects’ electricity usage is green as well.
*Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) are tradeable credits representing all the environmental benefits of 1 megawatt hour of renewable energy. The web hosting company has purchased the credits that basically pays a U.S. windfarm to generate renewable energy on behalf of the hosting company. For every REC purchased by the hosting provider, that windfarm generates 1 megawatt of wind power and puts it into the grid. When the hosting provider draws power from the grid, it can then claim credit for that wind power generated on its behalf.