ENERGY
Barry Bassett
of VMI
Well served
An Acton-based company has made cost savings and now uses less energy to
power its computer servers thanks to a scheme run by Ealing Council.
V
MI, which specialises in
digital equipment for TV
productions, applied for
help to the council’s smart
business grant scheme. The business
was awarded a £2,000 grant to
upgrade its existing computer servers
to a single, more energy-efficient one.
Barry Bassett, managing director
of VMI, said: “I was really pleased to
hear that Ealing Council was keen to
promote energy efficiency through
awarding grants. We applied to help
us with an IT infrastructure upgrade
which we wanted to do and which
also promised energy savings too, so
everyone would win.
“The application process was
genuinely straight forward and an
answer came back very quickly, too.
“Our idea was a large scale upgrade
which enabled us to retire five servers
and replace these with one ‘beefed-up’
server, which would not only save around
1KW of power but also an additional
1KW of cooling as well. The resulting
infrastructure would also be much faster,
more reliable and better in every way.
“Once the project completed at
the end of spring this year, I was really
pleased to discover that the energy
savings created by retiring several servers
are actually measurable and, comparing
this June with the same month last
year, saw us using around 14% less
power at our HQ. This calculates to real
cost savings and the generous grant
awarded by Ealing Council made the full
IT upgrade much easier to justify.”
HOW DOES THE SCHEME WORK?
Small to medium businesses in the
borough can apply for the council’s
smart business grants. They can apply
if they have identified a specific energy
saving project, or have obtained a free
energy survey from The Carbon Trust
(which can be called on 020 7832 4773).
Once the grant application form
is successfully completed, a support
package of up to 50% of costs may be
made available, with the remainder
match-funded by the business. The
minimum grant awarded is £1,000 and
the maximum £5,000.
MORE INFO
n Register an interest and
find out more by visiting
www.ealing.gov.uk/sbg
or by emailing
[email protected]
No longer tangled up by expensive servers
around ealing October 2017
19