Brighter outlook for managers with green ambitions

Electricity bill rebates for companies that adopt energy saving technologies could be on the cards after PC power management specialist Verdiem revealed last week that it is in talks with several utility companies about introducing such a scheme. However, experts are divided on whether UK electricity suppliers will support an initiative that would incentivise a reduction in energy use.

In certain US states such as California, firms that cut energy use are receiving rebates from increasingly hard-pressed electricity suppliers in an attempt to limit demand and reduce the risk of power shortages.

Kevin Klustner, chief executive of Verdiem, said the company has partnered with a number of US utilities to offer rebates to customers that deploy the vendor's Surveyor solution, which allows firms to automatically turn off PCs that are not in use. Similarly, Sun Microsystems and VMware have also partnered with Pacific Gas & Electric to offer energy bill rebates to customers using their technologies to cut datacentre energy use.

Matt Davis, managing director at Verdiem's European partner United Access Limited, said that the companies were in discussions with UK utility companies about introducing similar schemes here. If successful the initiative would probably be emulated by other IT vendors offering energy-saving technologies.

Binoy Dharsi at research firm Datamonitor said that while widespread rebate schemes were unlikely, some suppliers would be interested in Verdiem's proposals.

"Rebates would be attractive as another marketing angle for energy suppliers, " he said. "Customer retention is very important in this industry and this kind of programme could help."

A spokeswoman for E.ON said that the company would "fully investigate anything that would help improve customers' energy efficiency".

However, a spokesman for NPower was more sceptical about the prospect of r ebate schemes based on energy- efficient technologies.

"That model might work in the States, but there is not the same pressure on the grid here," he said. "There are other areas we invest in to encourage reduced demand, but I can’t think of a situation at the moment in the UK where we'd incentivise customers to use less energy."

The debate comes as competition in the area of energy-efficient datacentre technology is heating up. Fujitsu Services last week became the latest vendor to bolster its green credentials, unveiling plans for a new £44m datacentre designed to exploit the latest green IT and cooling technologies and save enough energy each year to power 6,000 homes. The company added that the new 65,000sq ft facility was being built in an existing warehouse in order to limit the environmental impact of building on a green field site.

The announcement followed the launch of new green services from Sun Microsystems based on its initiative to limit the environmental footprint of its own datacentres. Richard Barrington, head of public policy at Sun in the UK, said the company would "open source" the best practices it had developed when building three recently-opened "green" datacentres through the publication of a series of free white papers. The vendor will also offer a range of consultancy services designed to help other firms reduce their datacentre energy use, he added.