Quoting from the VMware official announcement:
Pacific Gas and Electric Company today announced the first-ever utility financial incentive program to support virtualization projects in data centers, with industry support from VMware, Intel Corporation and other high tech leaders.
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PG&E customers in northern and central California who are interested in earning financial incentives for virtualization projects must apply for the rebate prior to pursuing a project. The incentives are based on the amount of energy savings achieved through data center consolidation. Qualifying customers can earn a maximum rebate amount of $4 million per project site.In addition to the rebate, customers can expect to save $300 to $600 in annual energy costs for each server that is removed. Those savings can almost double when reduced data center cooling costs are also taken into account.
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For more information on Pacific Gas and Electric Company?s virtualization technology rebate program, please visit our website at www.pge.com/hightech.
This announcement probably represents one of the most important milestone in modern virtualization history, demostrating value of the technology and indirect profits it leads to.
Worldwide governments should consider following PG&E example to save money improving energy management and preserve environment.