{"id":16478,"date":"2019-10-01T11:00:27","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T19:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/10\/01\/news-10218\/"},"modified":"2019-10-01T11:00:27","modified_gmt":"2019-10-01T19:00:27","slug":"news-10218","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/10\/01\/news-10218\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Data Centers and Colocation Providers Prepared for the Evolving Energy Market?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Credit to Author: John Powers| Date: Tue, 01 Oct 2019 15:00:00 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"man <\/p>\n

Market evolution is driving change in how companies strategically manage their energy. This changing landscape opens opportunities for businesses to modify their energy consumption mix, with potential cost savings as a result. Increases in data-driven technology also help companies better understand their real-time, interval energy consumption and demand, which can provide the visibility required to curtail usage when prices spike or better negotiate contracts according to individual site consumption and demand patterns.<\/p>\n

Strategic energy management can result in significant cost savings. But respondents to our recent corporate energy and sustainability research report<\/a> indicate strategic sourcing as a top savings opportunity only 29% of the time. This is unfortunate, as businesses with strategic sourcing initiatives are also more likely to explore innovative technologies and invest in other complementary technologies such as combined heat and power, battery storage and renewables.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also increasing complexity in energy sourcing as markets begin to diversify their generation mix. Renewable technologies are now some of the most affordable electricity sources in the world and the result is higher renewable penetration than ever before.<\/p>\n

The upside to this market evolution is that cloud-service, colocation<\/a>, and data center companies have an immense opportunity to save money and balance their generation sources. But this opportunity also comes with a downside: the need to manage energy and risk in a more nuanced and strategic way.<\/p>\n

Change is Afoot: How the Market is Evolving<\/h2>\n

\"woman <\/p>\n

Market evolution introduces new considerations for technology companies to weigh as part of their overall procurement strategy. No longer is renewable energy an add-on for only the most progressive and environmentally-minded organizations. Renewables have become a key business strategy for many companies in the cloud-service and data center space, an industry that consistently leads the way in annual procurement of renewables via long-term corporate power purchase agreements (PPAs).<\/p>\n

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Data center and cloud-service providers are consistently ranked among the largest users of renewable energy. In 2019, Equinix, Digital Realty, Salesforce and Iron Mountain are listed in the U.S. EPA\u2019s Green Power Partnership National Top 100<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Some evidence of the changes being driven by market evolution:<\/p>\n