August 11, 2008; 09:34 AM
Foster City, CA – August 11, 2008 – Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX), the
leading global provider of network-neutral data centers and Internet exchange
services, today announced that it has joined the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) ENERGY STARÒ program, and that it has committed to assisting with EPA’s
initiative to develop a ratings program to measure, track and improve the
energy performance of the nation’s data centers.
The ENERGY STAR program began in 1992
as a voluntary market-based partnership for businesses in all industries to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions through increased energy efficiency.
Equinix has agreed to
participate in EPA’s data collection initiative aimed at developing a specific
ENERGY STAR ratings
program to measure, track and improve the overall energy performance of the
nation’s data centers. The goal of the program is to assist data center
operators in improving energy efficiency by assessing
energy performance using standardized metrics that are simple and can be
tracked on a continuous basis.
To develop the rating system, EPA is
collecting data on energy use and operating characteristics from a large number
of existing data center operators, including both stand-alone facilities as
well as data centers located in offices and other buildings. Equinix’s
participation in the program will include the collection of 12 consecutive
months of IT and data center energy use data from June 2008 through June 2009
from a sampling of its U.S. Internet Business Exchange (IBX®) centers.
Participants in the program currently include 150 data center owners and
operators, industry associations, and equipment suppliers and
consultants.
While this initiative
will focus on the data center infrastructure, such as power and cooling
operations, a separate ENERGY STAR specification is being developed to address
the energy efficiency of servers typically hosted within a data center and
which generally consume as much, or in some cases more, power than the
operational infrastructure. EPA plans to expand the ENERGY STAR program
to other data center IT products longer term, including storage and networking
equipment.
EPA currently provides an
energy performance rating for a wide variety of commercial buildings and
plants, allowing operators to compare their performance against a national
sample of similar facilities and track changes in energy use over time.
The performance rating system is based on a scale of 1-100, with a rating of 50
indicating that the building, from an energy consumption standpoint, performs
better than 50% of all similar buildings nationwide. A rating of 75
qualifies the building for the ENERGY STAR designation.
“By joining ENERGY STAR, Equinix has
made a fundamental commitment to resource conservation through the continuous
improvement of energy performance,” said Mike Zatz, manager of EPA's ENERGY
STAR Commercial Buildings Program. “We look forward to its participation
as we develop the performance metrics for the increasingly important segment of
data center facilities and lead the way to greater energy efficiencies.”
“Together with EPA and our industry
peers, Equinix is pleased to help develop consistent methods for measuring energy
performance as well as sharing industry best practices for operators of large
data centers,” said Dave Pickut, chief technology officer for Equinix.
“Equinix has more than 10 years of experience in designing and building some of
the most modern data centers in the industry and we believe that we have a lot
to offer, as well as a lot to gain, from participating in this initiative.”
Equinix is committed to operating the
most efficient data centers in the industry. The company’s efforts were
recently recognized at the Data Centres Europe conference, where Equinix won
the “Data Centers Europe Green Award,” and by the Bay Area Green Business
Program which “green” certified all four of Equinix’s Silicon Valley IBX
centers. In addition, Equinix has adopted a variety of programs that
maximize efficiency of operations, reduce environmental impact and support
industry green efforts including:
- Implementing
the most advanced data center design that leverages the efficiencies of
scale;
- Working with
customers to develop equipment deployments and configurations that
maximize efficiency and conservation, including hot-aisle, cold-aisle
configurations and separation of supply and exhaust air;
- Harnessing
external air temperature with the deployment of water-side heat exchangers
and air economizers that cool centers by bringing in outside air when
conditions are favorable;
- Using green
energy sources, such as Equinix’s four centers in Switzerland which operate on
100% hydropower;
- Aggressively implementing
new designs and technologies which take maximum advantage of conservation;
and
- Participation
in The Green Grid, a global consortium dedicated to advancing energy
efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems.
About ENERGY STAR
ENERGY STAR was introduced by
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1992 as a voluntary market-based
partnership to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through increased energy
efficiency. Today, ENERGY STAR offers businesses and consumers energy-efficient
solutions to save energy, money and help protect the environment for future
generations. More than 12,000 organizations are ENERGY STAR partners committed
to improving the energy efficiency of products, homes, buildings and
businesses. Last year alone, Americans with the help of ENERGY STAR, saved $16
billion on their energy bills and reduced greenhouse gas emissions the
equivalent to those of 27 million cars. For more information, visit www.energystar.gov or call toll-free
1-888-STAR-YES (1-888-782-7937).
About
Equinix
Equinix is the leading global provider of network-neutral
data center and interconnection services, offering premium colocation, traffic
exchange and outsourced IT infrastructure solutions. Global enterprises,
content companies, systems integrators and network service providers look to
Equinix Internet Business Exchange (IBX®) centers for world-class reliability
and network diversity. Equinix IBX centers serve as critical, core hubs
for IP networks and Internet operations worldwide. With 40 IBX centers
located in 18 strategic markets
across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific,
Equinix enables customers to reliably operate their mission-critical
infrastructure on a global basis.
# # #
This press
release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and
uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from expectations discussed
in such forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause such differences
include, but are not limited to, the challenges of acquiring, operating and
constructing IBX centers and developing, deploying and delivering Equinix
services; unanticipated costs or difficulties relating to the integration
of companies we have or will acquire into Equinix; a failure to
receive significant revenue from customers in recently built out or
acquired data centers; failure to complete any financing
arrangements contemplated from time to time; competition from existing and new
competitors; the ability to generate sufficient cash flow or otherwise obtain
funds to repay new or outstanding indebtedness; the loss or decline in business
from our key customers; the results of any litigation relating to past stock
option grants and practices; and other risks described from time to time in
Equinix's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In particular,
see Equinix's recent quarterly and annual reports filed with the Securities and
Exchange Commission, copies of which are available upon request from Equinix.
Equinix does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking
information contained in this press release.
Equinix and IBX are registered trademarks of Equinix, Inc.
Internet Business Exchange is a trademark of Equinix, Inc.
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