Tag: sustainability

DC power distribution’s role in the race to net zero

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While achieving net zero is a significant challenge, more smart buildings are hitting the milestone. In 2020, the New Building Institute verified 700 net-zero facilities in North America, and it expects the number to increase by as much as 50% every two years. One approach to net zero is with a direct current (DC) power distribution system that incorporates a renewable microgrid with energy storage to generate and deliver enough DC power to support building loads while eliminating the inefficiencies of traditional AC grid power. Incentives and technological advancements can facilitate the adoption of DC power distribution.

5 ways to reduce the carbon impact of smart building technologies

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While smart building technologies are vital to improving building efficiency, the actual technology products deployed throughout a smart building are mostly made up of fossil fuel derivatives and mined from non-renewable resources—from the IoT devices to the networks that connect them. That inherently makes it unfeasible for most of these products to be considered low-carbon construction materials. Even so, there are ways to reduce their impact. CommScope’s Ronna Davis covers five options.

Greening our buildings

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A Green Building is one where environmentally responsible and resource efficient structures and processes have been put in place throughout its lifecycle, creating a good quality of life for residents whilst ensuring sustainable practices are accessible, whether this is recycling services on site, sensors for communal lighting, or paperless tenancy applications and correspondence.

The Power in the Data Center is There — Use It

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For many in the data center sector, one of the most pressing concerns is that much of the world’s data center infrastructure operates in a manner that is financially suboptimal and environmentally unsustainable. If a data center is only using a fraction of the available power, then the capital investment that is tied up in inflexible power infrastructure is impotent. The question is, who is paying for that stranded capacity and unused space?

Data-center power consumption holds steady

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A study published in the journal Science last week, notes that while global data-center energy consumption has risen over the past decade, a predicted explosion in power consumption by data centers has not manifested thanks to advances in power efficiency and, ironically enough, the move to the cloud. Data centers accounted for about 205 terawatt-hours of electricity usage in 2018,  roughly 1% of all electricity consumption worldwide. This represents a 6% increase in total power consumption since 2010, while global data center compute instances rose by 550% over that same time period.

Beyond the Smart Buildings Hype – Facilities Management Insights

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Smart buildings are touted as providing more efficient buildings in terms of resource utilization, renewable resources, and energy efficiency, and as delivering improved indoor air quality (IAQ), productivity, and connectivity with the digital world. They hold out the promise of seamlessly weaving people, technology, and business into an enhanced and optimized ecosystem. Facilities managers must understand the real-world practicalities of implementing smart building technologies and systems.