On Thursday August 8, one of Equinix’s Los Angeles data centers became the proud recipient of a rebate from Southern California Edison (SCE) for upgrades to the facility that helped boost energy efficiency. The rebate, which totals $1,060,000, is part of SCE’s program offered to businesses to offset capital investments that result in saving energy.
Over a year ago, Equinix presented SCE with the following plan to spend $4.2 million on energy-saving initiatives at their LA3 International Business ExchangeTM (IBX®) location that included:
• Upgrades to the chillers
• Retrofitting the air-handling units inside the colocation space to make them more efficient
• Implementing air management to minimize recirculation of hot air and minimize by-pass of cold air in the data center
They expected these three improvements to result in significant energy savings, but the results exceeded their predictions. SCE audited Equinix’s energy use and determined they had saved even more energy than expected, resulting in a rebate that was tens of thousands of dollars more than anticipated.