Advanced Micro Devices – Harpreet Singh – 2009

Goals

Harpreet Singh, a MBA student at University of California at Davis, spent his summer in Sunnyvale, California, at Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), an innovative technology company dedicated to collaborating with customers and partners to ignite the next generation of computing and graphics solutions at work, home and play. Following the management adage, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure,” Singh used his statistical expertise to first determine the energy usage patterns and profile at the 1 AMD office building.

Solutions

He scoured through a year’s worth of data collected by Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) to divide AMD’s energy consumption into the following four categories: HVAC cooling, lighting, computing equipment and lab consumption. After finding where energy was consumed, Singh identified and evaluated potential energy efficiency projects for each category. Projects included a lighting retrofit and an installation of a new chiller.

Potential Impact

In total, Singh identified opportunities that could save AMD approximately $300,000 over the life of the projects. In addition, these opportunities could save up to 512,000 kWh of electricity per year.