Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Texas Companies, Projects Benefit From $47M DOE Effort

A number of Texas companies and projects are the recipients of part of a $47M, funding effort from the Department of Energy, announced Wednesday, aimed at improving energy efficiency in the information technology and communications technology sector. The program, announced by Energy Secretary Steven Chu, is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and awarded $47M to technologies focused on energy efficiency. Fourteen projects across the country were awarded part of the grant, with Plano-based Lineage Power, a project in Houston being run by Hewlett Packard, and another project in Plano being run by Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs all getting large awards from the DOE. According to the DOE, it will provide $2.4M in funding to Lineage Power as part of the development and testing of more efficient power rectifiers for running data and telecommunications center; another $7.43M to Hewlett-Packard as part of a Houston project to reduce energy usage through the creation of modular data centers which combine high voltage AC electrical supply, chilled water cooling components, and Direct Current electrical systems; and $1.8M in funding to a project, being run in Plano by Alcatel-Lucent, focused on developing and testing heat-sink structures and device-level liquid cooling technology.