14 Federal Agencies Recognized for CO2 Reduction

3PAR, Inc. announced that, as part of the 3PAR Carbon Neutral Storage program, 14 Federal Government agencies have recently received certificates recognizing reduced energy consumption and CO2 emissions as a result of deploying energy-efficient 3PAR InServ Storage Servers.

3PAR estimates that, by participating in the Carbon Neutral Storage program, 3PAR’s Federal customers are poised to reap cost savings in excess of US $4.2 million over the next five years – the equivalent of nearly 55,000 barrels of oil saved. These calculations take into account energy savings from replacing inefficient legacy storage arrays with green storage from 3PAR, as well as carbon offsets purchased by 3PAR on behalf of Federal customers under the terms of the 3PAR Carbon Neutral Storage program.

In the spring of 2010, 14 agencies took advantage of this program by purchasing InServ arrays from 3PAR. These agencies include: the Department of Energy (DOE); the Department of Justice (DOJ); the US Navy; the Department of Commerce (DOC); the Office of Personnel Management (OPM); the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA); Architect of the Capitol; and other Department of Defense and civilian agencies.

The Federal agencies that received carbon offset certificates over the last month join dozens of government entities that have avoided purchasing more than 4,000 Terabytes (TBs) of storage since the Carbon Neutral Program began in 2007, reducing their total 5-year carbon footprint by nearly 24,000 metric tons of CO2. These savings equate to removing an estimated 4,500 vehicles from the roads for an entire year. Under the terms of the 3PAR Carbon Neutral Storage program, 3PAR purchases carbon offsets on behalf of participating agencies. These offsets augment the energy efficiency of 3PAR InServ Storage Servers with 3PAR Thin Provisioning software to deliver effectively carbon neutral storage to participating customers. Carbon credits are purchased through TerraPass, a retailer of greenhouse gas reduction programs in the US.

Many of these agencies have deployed 3PAR Utility Storage in conjunction with key initiatives in direct response to Executive Order 13514 on Federal Sustainability, signed by President Obama to support Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance. The order requires Federal agencies to implement best practices and energy-efficient equipment and management processes to model environmental responsibility in their datacenters.

Since 2002, 3PAR has helped organizations meet Green IT objectives while reducing datacenter capital and operating costs by giving them the ability to shrink storage capacity requirements, power consumption, and carbon footprint by as much as 75%. 3PAR’s pioneering thin technologies allow customers to support their storage needs with fewer disk drives – reducing energy consumption and the production of greenhouse gasses while saving on capacity and energy costs. Combine this heightened efficiency with the 3PAR Carbon Neutral Storage program, and the savings are multiplied. 3PAR’s Carbon Neutral Storage program funds the purchase of offsets equivalent to one metric ton of CO2 for each terabyte of 3PAR Utility Storage sold with 3PAR Thin Provisioning on new 3PAR InServ arrays. The outcome is effectively 100% carbon neutral storage.

"3PAR has been committed to reducing the environmental impact of the datacenter since long before it was the fashionable thing to do," said David Scott, CEO of 3PAR. "We continue to provide simple yet powerful ways for Federal agencies to meet Green IT goals, enabling them to do more with less during these fiscally challenging times. With datacenters consuming a total of 1.5 percent of the nation’s power supply, we hope that the impact of the energy savings that government agencies have achieved with 3PAR Utility Storage will trickle down into agency budgets as well as individual communities."