The Energy Efficient Government Technology Act (H.R. 1268) was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and several Alliance Honorary Board Members on March 4, 2015. Most recently, its provisions were included in Section 3111 of H.R. 8, the House’s comprehensive energy bill. An identical bill was introduced in the U.S. Senate (S. 1706) by Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) on July 7, 2015, and its provisions were included in Section 1009 of S. 2012, the Senate’s comprehensive energy bill.

Summary

This bill would amend the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 regarding energy-efficient and energy-saving information technologies and stakeholder engagement. It would also create data centers that collect energy use and efficiency opportunity data.

Key Provisions

Federal agencies would develop an implementation strategy in coordination with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Department of Energy (DOE), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that includes best practices as well as measurement and verification techniques for maintaining, purchasing, and using energy-efficient and energy-saving information technologies within their respective agencies. Strategies would consider measures such as advanced metering infrastructure, data center efficiency analysis, advanced power management tools, and building information modeling, among others. Each agency would then report its efforts and results.

When coordinating stakeholder engagement, the Secretary of Energy and the EPA Administrator would particularly analyze efforts from organizations that possess the following qualities and practices:

• Organization members maintain expertise in energy efficiency and work with data centers, information technology equipment, and software.
• Organizations work with National Laboratories or similar institutions with applicable expertise.
• Organizations follow commonly accepted procedures for developing specifications and standards.
• Organizations promote energy efficiency for data centers and information technology.

The Secretary would also maintain a data center energy practitioner program that certifies individuals in evaluating energy use and efficiency opportunities in federal data centers. The data gathered within these centers would be accessible in a way that encourages further data center innovation and consolidation. The Secretary would work toward harmonizing global specifications and metrics for data center energy and water efficiency as well as developing an efficiency metric to measure the energy efficiency of a data center. All proprietary information or trade secrets given for these purposes would be kept confidential.