It pays to go green! How about $1.4 million?

California's Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) awarded a company called NetApp a $1.4 million rebate from the Non-Residential New Construction Program that gives rebates to PG&E's customers who use energy-efficient building design and construction. NetApp, a storage and data management provider, received the check for the work it did when designing and building its new Sunnyvale engineering data center.

NetApp stressed power efficiency and reduced cooling needs through techniques such as environmentally friendly flywheel uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems, energy-efficient transformers, outside air economizers, and a variable primary chiller plant. In addition to the rebate check, PG&E says NetApp will save more than 11,100,000 kilowatt-hours annually, which equates to a savings of more than $1,178,000 a year.