NYC IoE Tour: The Curious World of Energy Management

It’s fitting that we’re in NYC this week, talking about energy management during Cisco’s Internet of Everything tour. And that’s because it’s an issue that’s left $24.60 billion worth of energy savings on the table – enough to power NYC for 5 years!

The issue at hand revolves around the lack of visibility into IT environments and connected devices, specifically on much energy is being consumed when something isn’t actually being used. In Cisco’s Internet of Everything vision, connectivity within the energy management sector will help automate a process that’s too cumbersome to execute manually. This includes everything from turning off computers when they’re not used to powering down ATM machines when there’s no foot traffic.

Speaking of ATMs

Joining us at the event this week was Sparkasse, one of the largest banks in Germany with more than 400 locations, 350,000 employees and 3 trillion Euros in assets. At first, Sparkasse leveraged energy management technology to turn on and off PCs in accordance with when banks were open – it has since expanded to many other IT devices, including ATM machines. After deploying energy management across its networks, ATMs across the country were optimized to power down during hours when they were not in use, specifically within indoor areas where closing hours are involved. Sparkasse didn’t need to physically touch any of the machines or install software individually. All of this was done automatically over the network. Savings have been in the millions annually, cutting down both overall energy consumption and the bank’s carbon footprint.

Schools and Hospitals

On October 31, Cisco held an energy management roundtable with customers from both the education and healthcare verticals. On hand was Mark Hennessee, District Energy Manager for the Hammond School District (Indiana, K-12), who talked about how visibility into his districts’ plug load has resulted in 35% less power consumption and annual projected savings of $31,500 – even more when you include an incentive check from the local utility provider.

Jan Pieter Evenhuis, IT Consultant of the Nij Smellinghe Hospital located in the Northern Dutch town of Drachten was also in attendance to talk about the challenges of energy management in the context of a 24/7 operation like a hospital. The level of visibility that was provided into their IT environment drove upwards of 30% in energy consumption reduction.

The Road Ahead

As we continue to explore the issue of energy management, enterprise IT environments and devices is the start of a plethora of other verticals that face this problem. As we saw with Sparkasse, it’s often things you don’t expect – like the ATM machines at your local bank. In a world where connected “things” can be choreographed to power on and off at the most optimal times, you open up the opportunity to make the world a little greener and help organizations of all sizes save money.