SCTE Cuts Costs With Energy Management Program

The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) said it reduced costs of electricity from the grid by 46 percent during the first quarter of 2011, as a result of a comprehensive energy-reduction program instituted at its headquarters facility.

Using comparative figures for the January-March periods from the 2009 baseline year and 2011, SCTE announced that its implementation of alternative power sources and its use of more efficient lighting and information technology systems contributed to the reduced draw from public power sources.

Created in conjunction with the introduction of SCTE’s industry-wide Smart Energy Management Initiative (SEMI), the SCTE program has included:

• Installation in partnership with Alpha Technologies of a solar system that has met 100 percent of critical IT equipment power needs and 10 percent of total headquarters demand;
• Replacement of high-wattage lighting fixtures with LED bulbs, resulting in a reduction in power of up to 89 percent; and
• The acquisition of new servers with advanced processors and more efficient power supplies as part of a server virtualization project that allows SCTE to operate critical business systems with 50 percent fewer servers.

SCTE intends to continue to address energy costs in the coming year through expansion of its LED lighting activities, installation of a hydrogen fuel cell (in partnership with CommScope) for backup power to critical IT equipment, and improvements to the building envelope that will yield additional savings.