The office in charge of IT infrastructure of the State of California said the state was on track to reach IT energy-consumption reduction targets set by a mandate established in 2010.

So far, the state has achieved a reduction of about 22.5m kWh per year through data center consolidation and improvements in PC power management, the California Technology Agency said in a statement released on Earth Day.

"Through PC power management and data center consolidation the state has significantly reduced the energy consumption of IT and telecommunications equipment," Adrian Farley, state CTO, said in a statement.

Targets the aforementioned legislation set for the agency were to reduce IT and telecom equipment power use by 20% by July 1, 2011 and by 30% by July 1, 2012.

Technology Agency representatives were not immediately available to comment.

More than half of the reported energy savings came from recent closure of the state's Cannery data center in Sacramento. The move out of the facility was completed in June 2010, enabling the state to decommission about 75,000 sq ft of raised floor.

This was a 25% reduction in the state's physical data center footprint and a 12.5m-kWh reduction in annual power consumption by its technology infrastructure.

The rest of the savings (10m kWh, based on reports individual agencies filed with the Technology Agency) came through implementation of PC power-management software and techniques.

Equipment from the Cannery data center was moved to a State Compensation Insurance Fund data center in Vacaville, California. The Office of Technology Services (a Technology Agency division) is leasing about 6,500 sq ft of space from the fund to house the infrastructure.