Day one of Open Compute Summit V ended with a Panel debating the issue of renewable energy solutions for the data centers. Moderated by Bill Weihl (Manager of Energy Efficiency and Sustainability with Facebook), the panel brought on stage Vince Van Son (Data Center Energy Manager, Facebook), Gary Cook (Senior Policy Analyst, Greenpeace), Rob Bernard (Chief Environmental Strategist, Microsoft) and Melissa Gray (Senior Director of Sustainability, Rackspace).

Starting with  Cook,  Weihl wanted to know, “why does  green matter so much for this industry?”

“Despite all the efficiency and improvements you’ve been hearing about all day long, your energy demand is going up,” stated Cook. “You are all growing very quickly and your emissions are going up. If you take a step back and look at how much electricity this sector is consuming, it would be the sixth in the world – if it were a country.”

And, as it has been said before at this event, “we’re only now starting to bring people online. If predictions hold true, we’re going to have 5 billion people online in the next couple of years and that means your energy demand is going to get up,” predicted Cook.

Therefore, it becomes really important where the energy is coming from.

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How top players are managing energy costs

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“Why does Microsoft care about this?” asked  Weihl, addressing  Bernard.

“There’s a couple of intersecting issues here,” Bernard started.

1) How do you actually secure energy supply? These are large energy demands. If we’re relying on a 20th Century infrastructure, trying to run a 21st Century business, you have to think differently about energy supply.

2) What’s the makeup of those electrons, and

3) how do you drive down that electron use per transaction.

“Obviously we care immensely about the costs, we care about making sure we’re consistent with our goal of carbon neutrality and sustainability and we think we have a unique opportunity and obligation to help advance the 21st Century energy infrastructure,” explained  Bernard.

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“What about Facebook?” asked Weihl.

“Renewable energy is important to us for quite a few reasons,” said Van Son. For instance, “renewable energy is a key way to reduce environmental footprint and we’re all here working to maximise the efficiency of our data centers full scope: design, build, construction.”

“We spend a considerable amount of time and effort hunting for those renewable energy sources that fit – cost-competitive, scalable, replicable. We’re not looking for a one-off, but for solutions that other people can add to and build on and learn from, using those solutions at their data centers as well.”

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“How is Rackspace approaching energy in general and renewable energy in particular?” asked  Weihl.

“We started by doing an inventory of our business, measuring how much and how fast it was growing, what was the planetary impact and what we wanted to do from a strategic perspective to move it forward, so it’s engaging with utilities, customers and trying to figure out the right path to move up the scale,” explained  Gray.

“A lot of our renewable energy today comes from renewable energy certificates and levy exempt certificates. That means renewable energy that’s not in the same place at the data center, and we’re tying to move that closer and closer.”

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A collaborative, green path

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“There’s still a lot of experimentation going on, but I’m curious how can the industry work together to move this a lot faster?” inquired  Wihl.

“Collaboration is the key way to work with utilities,” answered Van Son. “It’s essential to aggregate our needs with other needs of consumers – either within the industry or cross-sectors.”

According to Van Son taking small steps is OK, and people shouldn’t be aiming at the moon for the first step. “Learn by doing,” he advised.

“What advice do you have for other companies?” asked Wihl.

“Look at your company’s core mission,” advised Gray. “For us, that is providing a service experience that is beyond anything and being recognized as one of the world’s greatest service companies. Everything I do is aligned with serving. Start at home with those values, and try to understand how are you going to integrate this with your business strategy.”

“Energy is a huge component of our supply chain,” added  Bernard. “If you want to be innovative, you have to decide if you’re going to be a fast follower or a bleeding edge – and there are pros and cons to both.”

Watch the entire segment below to see the guests discussing topics like the total cost of ownership, vertically integrating green initiatives into the design build, and leveraging the team.