Release Date: November 8, 2006
Contact: PG&E News Department (415) 973-5930

PG&E Collaborates with Silicon Valley Companies to Announce Rebates for New Energy Efficient Server Technology First of Its Kind Program Offers Financial Incentives for Virtualization Projects in Data Centers

 SAN FRANCISCO - Pacific Gas and Electric Company today announced the first-ever utility financial incentive program to support virtualization projects in data centers, with industry support from VMware, Intel Corporation and other high tech leaders. Virtualization allows multiple applications to run concurrently on computing equipment, thereby enabling customers to consolidate their data centers and remove a large portion of their existing servers.
“Virtualization technology is helping our customers realize significant energy and cost savings, while addressing critical data center capacity issues,” explained Helen Burt, senior vice president and chief customer officer for PG&E. “By providing financial support, we hope to increase industry adoption of this technology.”
PG&E customers in northern and central California who are interested in earning financial incentives for virtualization projects must apply for the rebate prior to pursuing a project. The incentives are based on the amount of energy savings achieved through data center consolidation. Qualifying customers can earn a maximum rebate amount of $4 million per project site.
In addition to the rebate, customers can expect to save $300 to $600 in annual energy costs for each server that is removed. Those savings can almost double when reduced data center cooling costs are also taken into account.
“VMware applauds PG&E’s recognition of the phenomenal energy savings made possible through virtualization, and in particular VMware’s broad line of industry-leading products,” noted Diane Greene, president of VMware. “These savings apply to customers with small offices on up to those with relatively large data centers. They can all save on power and cooling as well as benefit from other advantages through the deployment of VMware Infrastructure products.”
Virtualization allows operating system application stacks to be mapped optimally to the underlying hardware resources, increasing utilization rates by 10 to 15 times.

Intel Corporation provides support for virtualization with Intel Virtualization Technology built into the Intel Xeon® and Itanium® microprocessors. Intel is working with fellow travelers such as HP, Dell, IBM, and Rackable Systems to promote virtualization and PG&E’s rebate program. Rackable Systems has recently completed an application for the PG&E rebate program using energy efficient Intel Xeon® processor based servers.
“Lowering operational costs through data center consolidation is a key opportunity for our IT customers,” said Diane Bryant, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Server Platforms Group. “The rebates that PG&E customers receive as a result of deploying energy efficient Intel processor-based servers in virtualized environments will be a big incentive for moving faster with their data center consolidation efforts.”
Optimizing energy efficiency not only reduces energy costs, it can earn incentives and rebates, benefit the environment, and help PG&E manage the cost and supply of energy for everyone. Because different customers have different specialized energy needs, PG&E has created products and services that are customized to identify and meet the needs of specific facilities. PG&E offers targeted workshops, seminars, and training programs for building operators, facility managers, and the engineering and design community that help customers keep current with the best practices for efficient facility design and operations.

For more information on Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s virtualization technology rebate program, please visit our website at www.pge.com/hightech

 QUOTE SHEET 

The following high tech companies have expressed their support for PG&E’s program that provides financial incentives for virtualization projects.

 HP 
“HP supports PG&E's initiative on virtualization,” says Paul Perez, vice president of storage, networks and infrastructure at HP, "HP's holistic approach to improving data center efficiency spans from a complete range of technologies designed for HP BladeSystem c-Class, ProLiant and Integrity servers, to extensive server consolidation and virtualization capabilities including high-performance ProLiant Essentials tools for managing and transitioning into virtual environments. HP has been working with customers and virtualization leaders like VMware and Intel to deliver significant savings and with PG&E on other customer power rebate opportunities.”

 Rackable Systems 
“Rackable Systems is pleased to be supporting PG&E’s efforts to aggressively reduce power consumption in California data centers,” said Colette LaForce, vice president of marketing at Rackable Systems. “PG&E’s acceptance of our application to provide rebates for customers deploying Rackable Systems’ power-friendly servers in virtualized environments demonstrates the joint commitment of Rackable Systems, Intel and VMWare to significantly improve data center efficiencies.”

 IBM 
"As the pioneer of virtualization more than four decades ago, IBM sees virtualization combined with power efficiency as a key differentiator in our systems design” says Rich Lechner, vice president of virtualization at IBM. “Pairing highly efficient hardware from providers like Intel with IBM's skill in deployment of virtualization will empower clients to lower their power and cooling costs. Forward-thinking providers like PG&E are expected to see this valuable combination as a major step forward in energy efficiency and provide energy rebates as a reward."

 Dell 
“Dell supports the PG&E program and has made major investments across a range of areas with VMware and Intel to help customers drive virtualization across their enterprise,” said Alex Salehi, vice president of large business for the Dell Advanced Systems Group. “We will continue to lead the industry in delivering virtualization solutions that take the time and complexity out of consolidating and achieving increased utilization in customers’ IT infrastructures.”