GE Ecomagination Series: Pete Van Deventer CEO of SynapSense

Welcome to the GE Ecomagination CEO Series, where each month we share the inside story of how GE is helping find, fund, and develop innovative technologies and projects that are not only good for business, but also people and the environment. Join host Robert Reiss as he interviews Pete Van Deventer of SynapSense and Maryrose Sylvester of GE Intelligent Platforms to discuss GE’s green partnership with SynapSense.

Van Deventer is president and CEO of SynapSense, a California-based company that produces wireless technologies that improve the efficiency of data centers. GE is SynapSense’s client, but believed so strongly in SynapSense’s innovative product that GE Energy Financial Services invested in the company, and GE Intelligent Platforms entered into a partnership with it.

SynapSense develops and produces systems that improve the efficiency of data centers, such as sensors that monitor, adjust and automate the circulation of the cool air that flows underneath data center computers.

Data centers consume 3 percent of U.S. energy, according to Sylvester, President and CEO of GE Intelligent Platforms, and with the popularity of smartphones and other types of technology, the need for data centers is expected to double within a few years.

“Managing those centers is an expensive proposition,” adds Van Deventer. “Many of those data centers only have a certain amount of power, and they can only put so much information in those rooms before they run out of space. We’re providing a technology that lets them optimize that space.” The payoff for a company that uses SynapSense technology comes from reduced utility bills and rebates.

GE and SynapSense will offer their customers a unified platform that combines the innovations of two dynamic companies. GE, a top global software provider whose products can already be found in many U.S. data centers, brings to the partnership an expanded market.

“When you’re bringing a new technology to the market, you want to stand in front of your customer with 100 percent confidence that this technology is going to deliver on its promise, and we’re promising our customers 10 percent electricity reduction,” says Sylvester.

The two companies hope their partnership will contribute to a 10 percent overall decrease in U.S. data center energy consumption.

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