Feds ready to lead green IT movement, but outreach needed

The federal government is poised to play a leadership role in promoting energy-efficient information technology, but discussions among the disparate groups needed to promote green systems have not fully developed. The comments came after a forum on energy-saving innovations in Washington on Tuesday.

"What we don't have is a discussion at the federal level that links these groups that need to come together," including IT specialists, building and real estate managers and energy policymakers, said Molly Webb, head of strategic engagement for the Climate Group, a global nonprofit coalition of governments and businesses working to cut emissions. The group and Google co-sponsored the event.

In October, President Obama signed an executive order that committed the federal government to lead by example in building a clean energy economy, partly by wielding its purchasing power in the energy-efficient electronics market. The White House also held an online competition for federal employees to propose ideas for reducing greenhouse gas pollution. The contest has since evolved into an online community, where employees are sharing strategies for carrying out the thousands of ideas submitted. The most popular suggestions from the contest include expanding telework and using digital signatures to reduce paper waste.

Tuesday's program focused on providing information on energy use to consumers. Webb said during an interview the government's move to ensure agencies purchase electronics marked with the Energy Star logo is promising, as is the establishment of a chief information officer at the federal level. Energy Star is a voluntary, government-backed program that labels qualified products as energy saving. With the addition of a governmentwide CIO, "there's somebody looking at access to information," for citizens, she said.

From a low-tech perspective, federal employees already are curbing IT energy consumption by turning off printers that are not in use and recycling paper, agency officials have said. At the high-tech level, some departments are better managing data centers to monitor and reduce power consumption, Nick Sinai, energy and environment director at the Federal Communications Commission, said in an interview. The national broadband plan FCC released in March recommends "all federal data centers should be metered as soon as practicable," Sinai pointed out.

The federal government owns about 10 percent of the nation's data centers and servers, so metering energy use would allow the government to demonstrate for the private sector how to improve energy efficiency, he said.

Access to information was a point of debate during the event. For example, details on a building's power use can tell homeowners or agency employees which appliances account for most of the charges on their utility bills. But access to the information also could let a would-be thief know a homeowner or agency employee is not home or in the office.

"You will get consumer questions about these issues unless we think about [access regulation] now and build it into the system," said Leslie Harris, president and chief executive officer of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a privacy group. The digital power infrastructure should be designed to give users a lot of control over what data is collected and who can see it, she added.

Consumers' ability to join the green IT movement depends on ubiquitous high-speed Internet connectivity, the panelists said. Most agencies have easy access to broadband, but almost 100 million citizens do not, according to the broadband plan. Google is testing ultra-high-speed networks that deliver 1 gigabit of data per second -- more than 100 times faster than the average Internet access -- in a small number of communities.

In addition, the federal government is urging military installations be outfitted with ultra-high-speed connectivity, Sinai noted during the program. The Defense Department is the single largest energy user in the nation, according to the broadband plan. It states that if these connections were rolled out to military bases, Defense could install smart meters and smart grids, which use computer networks to deliver electricity more efficiently.