Have you ever really thought about just how much energy is lost through heat given off from your computer or IT system?

That is one of the questions power and cooling services provider APC-MGE has been aiming to address with its range of energy and cost saving devices.

And APC-MGE and its Bermuda partner and distributor BESCO were on hand to give a presentation on and discuss the Efficient Enterprise for Data Centres with the Island's business community from senior executives to IT experts at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess.

Aaron Davis, chief marketing officer, who was conducting the talk explained that APC-MGE specialises in uninterrupted power systems that protect energy in sites where companies have based their routers, switches and other hardware and software, through the use of monitoring and physical management.

Gartner Research has revealed that, by next year, 50 percent of all data centres built prior to 2002 will be obsolete due to insufficient power and cooling capabilities.

And with 48 percent of IT budgets being spent on energy costs alone, APC-MGE's Efficient Enterprise allows companies to reduce their energy requirements by 50 percent as well as guaranteeing their business continuity and enabling them to be more competitive in the local and international markets.

"All of the technology that we use in our day-to-day lives gets fed back in to an overall electronic infrastructure and, in bringing our solutions to the market over the past two years, we have been looking for partners to do things a different way as well," said Mr. Davis.

"We need to bring the message to the market that if we keep doing things the way we do them, we will waste money in terms of energy that, in most cases, is going out of the window in heat."

The US-based company, which has been rolling out the systems globally since 2003, is currently on a world tour marketing its products, which, in the case of Bermuda, Mr. Davis believes can help save consumers 35 to 40 percent in energy costs.

"IT equipment and computer stuff gets cheaper, but the energy used to run them gets more and more expensive," he said.

"You can basically take 30 percent out of your operating budget and free up capacity to put in more servers by using the Efficient Enterprise for Data Centres.

"But, most business owners are finding out the hard way that if you have a very antiquated system from a power and cooling standard, by which I mean one built before 2006, you can't get any more power into your system because this equipment is acting as a big energy sponge.

"What we want to do is come in and we will remove the antiquated stuff and get brand new stuff in instead and it will save on your energy costs and allow more power into your system."

Statistics reveal that companies spend, on average, $2.5 trillion a year on people and energy to run their organisations, with 25 percent of the power and cooling overheads going on general data centres, but the Efficient Enterprise system can help save 35 percent of those energy costs, amounting to $100 billion, said Mr. Davis.

Meanwhile, the whole process of acquiring a new system can take only a matter of between a few days and weeks from choosing the initial specifications to full installation, he said.

"You would come into BESCO, for example, and they would build what you need," Mr. Davis said.

"They would use an efficiency quotient to work out how much energy you would save using the system and what is suitable and you would see the savings in lighting, cooling and power.

"Then, they would use the infrastructure designer software, with the design able to be changed if you need more or less materials or lengths of cord and it enables you to do 3D modelling, line drawings, thermal dynamic modelling and simulations."

Indeed, APC-MGE has gone one step further than most of its conventional competitors by helping to set up the Schneider Electric Technology Centre in St. Louis, Missouri, where users can try out different systems for themselves to find out how they work and what is the best solution for them, according to Mr. Davis.

"It is a live data centre where people can come in and do what they want with the equipment," he said.

"It allows the facility person and the IT person to get together and go from doing the theory to the actual process. It is not stuff that people think about until there is a problem or they get their electricity bills.

"The initial costs of the solutions are higher because at the end of the day the consumer has spent a little bit more on them, but the results are exponential represented in the return they get in two to three years from them."

To find out more about the Efficient Enterprise for Data Centres systems contact aaron.davis[AT]apcc.com