Global warming is affecting everyone of us. How should corporations use green technology to enhance energy efficiency and reduce carbon emission? HKU SPACE successfully held a Green Technologies and Living Series seminar on 13th January with the theme ‘Green Information & Communication Technologies: Optimizing Energy Saving Strategies & Best Practices’. It was an co-organised event collaborated with the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE) and the Institution of Engineering and Technology Hong Kong (IET).
Guest speakers include Prof. Dennis Leung from Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong; Mr. Samson Tai, Chief Technologist, IBM; Mr. Lawrence Tam, Technical Director, Emerson Network Power; and Mr. Lawrence Wong, Managing Director, One Click Technologies. The seminar attracted nearly a hundred audiences.
Great Potential to Develop Wind Power
Green technology, like other kinds of technology, needs energy supplies. Prof. Dennis Leung explained the current usage of clean and renewable energy. He mentioned that many countries have developed policies for using clean and renewable energy. In China, it is planned that 15% of her energy supplies will be renewable energy in 2020. Currently, the U.S.A and the European countries are doing research on solar energy and it estimated that there will be a rapid growth of the usage of solar power in the next 10 to 20 years. Besides, many countries use wind power at a rapid rate. Prof. Leung believed that wind power has the greatest potential to be widely developed to replace convention energy in short to long term among different types of renewable energy. He also introduced the modular micro-wind turbine invented by the University of Hong Kong. One of its advantages is that it can generate power at a low wind speed.
Ways to Reduce Carbon Emission from Data Centre
Mr. Tai talked about how information technology can reduce carbon emission. He mentioned a Gartner’s research result that 35% of IT energy consumption was from the data centre. He added that 60% of energy of a data centre went to air-conditioning. IBM is a company emphasizing environmental conservation with many measures to reduce carbon emission of a data centre and even to achieve a zero-emission data centre. For instance, there are software tools to monitor the usage of the servers and turn them off when they are not being used. In addition, there is a new cooling technology to cool the chip with water of room temperature which can save energy.
New Trend in Data Centre Design
Mr. Tam talked about data centre design. He said that there is a large scale system to monitor the PUE, an indicator of data centre’s energy efficiency, and to check whether there are idle servers in some investment banks. Currently, a majority of data centres can operate under a temperature of 24 degrees Celsius and this can reduce the energy consumption on air-conditioning.
Intelligence Power Socket: The Intelligence of Hong Kong People
Ideas of technological design come from daily life. Mr. Wong introduced the energy saving IntelliPlug which uses auto-calibration technology to help people turn off the equipment which is not being used. This can save energy at home and office. The product is invented by Hong Kong people and it is successful in the foreign market.
Last but not least, Anthony Kwan, the representative of HKIE and Martin Lam, the Programme Manager of the College of Life Sciences and Technology gave a conclusion of the seminar. Mr. Kwan encouraged the audiences to keep aware of the latest development of energy and green technology. The College has a programme called Executive Diploma in Green Management for Corporates which aims to help executive who need to acquire core knowledge, standard, policy, regulation and best practices in managing green issues as well as the enabling tools for carrying out green initiatives within a corporate.
Mr. Lam said that the College will launch a series of Green Technologies and Living seminars and the upcoming one will be about green transportation
by Tommy Li Tak Ching
