Microsoft Dangles Energy Efficiency Carrot to Workers

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REDMOND, Wash. -- Microsoft entices its employees with incentives to drive down energy use at its data centers, company executives said at a recent conference.

According to IDG News Service, the company recognized that reducing energy consumption sometimes depends on behavior, not technology. So Microsoft began looking for ways to financially motivate its employees to change their behavior.

Energy efficiency of Microsoft's data centers improved 22 percent between 2004 and 2007, company executives said at a data center efficiency conference held by the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

For instance, Microsoft started tying annual bonuses of data center facilities managers to efficiency improvements. Their behavior changed. In one case, a facility manager cleaned the roof to improve heat reflection. That improved energy efficiency so the company makes sure all data center roofs are kept clean.

The company also began charging business units for the amount of energy used by their servers. Previously, the business units were charged for the amount of floor space their servers used in company data centers. That led to high concentrations of stacked, energy-intensive servers. Instead, business units became more conscious of the amount of servers used to perform their work, as well as the amount of dual in-line memory modules that needed.

Energy efficiency even trickled down to the codes written by developers, who now consider the amount of energy required by a code in addition to the time requirements.

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