Via the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Lineage Power's DOE application was funded based on the potential superiority over currently used technologies, while offering good potential economic benefits through reduced operating costs. The Lineage Power Total Efficiency technology is estimated to save over a billion kilowatt hours annually by reducing power consumption and cooling costs within telecom central offices and large data centers.

"As consumer demand for mobile smartphones, eBook readers and tablet computers increases, telecom infrastructures will be pushed to support thousands of voice, video and data applications," said Craig Witsoe, CEO of Lineage Power. "Existing 3G and new 4G/LTE wireless networks that deliver these applications require increased power capacity and optimal conversion efficiency. Our U.S.-based engineering team is proud to have been selected by the Department of Energy to help carriers cost-effectively achieve their sustainability objectives."

Information technology and telecommunications facilities account for approximately 120 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually -- or 3 percent of all U.S. electricity use. Rapid growth in the U.S. data center industry is projected to require two new large power plants per year just to keep pace with the expected demand growth. Without gains in efficiency, the industry will face increasing costs and greenhouse gas emissions, along with challenges to the reliability of the electricity service.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is providing funding for research, development and demonstration projects in three subject areas: equipment and software, power supply chain and cooling. Lineage Power's research program is classified as a power supply chain project. The DoE funded research will document the impact of Lineage Power's technology in telecom carrier's central offices and large data centers to deliver quantifiable data that telecom operators can use to lower cooling costs and recapture energy typically lost in the power conversion process.

"These Recovery Act projects will improve the efficiency of a strong and growing sector of the American economy. By reducing energy use and energy costs for the IT and telecommunications industries, this funding will help create jobs and ensure the sector remains competitive," said U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu. "The expected growth of these industries means that new technologies adopted today will yield benefits for many years to come."

Lineage Power's end-to-end Total Efficiency architecture is designed to help telecommunications carriers, wireless operators, Internet service providers (ISPs) and large enterprises achieve their sustainability objectives by recapturing 50 to 70 percent of energy typically lost in the power conversion process. The Lineage Power Total Efficiency (TE) Architecture approach includes hardware, software and services for central offices, mobile switching centers, cell sites and data centers. Completely backwards compatible to leverage currently deployed energy systems, the new TE architecture products deliver end-to-end efficiency approaching 97 percent across a wide range of normal load conditions.

By Robert Hoskins

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