When greening your data center, don't forget the lights

Did you know that lighting eats up about 25 percent of the power in most commercial buildings and between 15 percent and 20 percent of the power in a typical data center?

Green Ray Technology, an LED lighting company in Santa Rosa, Calif., is finding its way into data centers in the Bay Area by reminding facilities managers about this message -- and by reminding them they could get tax credits for doing a retrofit.

Mauricio Gutierrez, partner and president of sales for the company, says one of his company's clients, a San Francisco parking garage, earned a credit of $1 per square foot by making the switch. That should could take the sting out of the cost of a retrofit, especially since Green Ray's LEDs are designed to be 60 percent to 80 percent more energy efficient than existing lighting, according to the company's Web site.

Green Ray also is trying to find other innovative ways to help finance an LED migration, such as providing five-year extended warranties for some of its products and making sure that its LiteLife technology fits existing fluorescent sockets.

In any event, the tax credit climate and new competition in the LED commercial space could make LED lighting technology work an evaluation in 2010.