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third and will focus on producing low-emitting energy and gas in the coming years, the pressure is on to make good on these claims and aims. Vattenfall wields great influence throughout Europe, and it is a position that Rösch and the IT department must respond to. “We have, of course, new challenges relating to the specific needs of the new forms of energy production,” he says. “We have enormous engagements in offshore wind. It is a challenge for the IT department to support the project during the planning stage, and we are piloting a new project portfolio management system with our wind business unit. Our support comes in the form of helping the developers build these wind plants more efficiently, and also in helping them stay on track in terms of timescale. Once they are up and running, there remain specific challenges with maintenance and logistics, which is another specific challenge that is being addressed by our current IT activities.” As well as aiding and assisting the creation and maintenance of Vattenfall’s impressive wind energy objectives, IT is also helping to internally lower the company’s carbon footprint. “We have come some way in consolidating the number of data centres we use, but we are also looking towards improving the power usage effectiveness at these centres,” says Rösch. “At the facility we run in Hamburg the power usage effectiveness (PUE) is 1.7, while in our
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brand new facility in Amsterdam it is 1.27, which is just about the best benchmark that I am aware of.” Finally, Vattenfall Europe has also switched the focus of responsible living on to its own employees, developing an internal project that has been designed to raise energy consumption awareness with the company. “We have installed smart meters at every floor on the main office building in Hamburg, and display each floor’s energy consumption on a big screen at the entrance to the company restaurant,” concludes Rösch. “We then organised a competition to judge which floor could bring down its consumption rates the most. There was a final prize of course, but the most interesting thing was seeing how much we were able to mobilise people to really change their ways.” So, lights were turned off when rooms were not in use, PCs were powered down each evening and unnecessary printing was kept to a minimum. “If you look at the emissions of Vattenfall as a whole then this project probably didn’t have much of an impact, but it was invaluable in educating our staff about energy consumption, and it is something that we can now take to the market and help our customers implement similar projects.” With Vattenfall’s own staff leading by example, the power company of choice for millions of Europeans is shouldering even more responsibility and environmental awareness, for which it should be roundly applauded. ■
“We have come some way in consolidating the number of data centres we use, but we are also looking towards improving the power usage effectiveness at these centres”
07/12/2010 13:24