DCF Show: Traversing the Data Center Power Market with Legend Energy Advisors
The Legend Energy Advisors (Legend EA) vision of energy usage is one in which all companies have real-time visibility into related processes and factors such as equipment efficiency, labor intensity, and consumption of power and other energy resources across their operations.
During this episode of the Data Center Frontier Show podcast, the company's CEO and founder, Dan Crosby, and his associate, Ralph Rodriguez, RCDD, discussed the Legend Analytics platform, which offers commodity risk assessment and infrastructure services, and real-time metering for energy usage and efficiency.
The firm contends that only through such "total transparency" will their clients be able to "radically impact" energy and resource consumption intensity at every stage of their businesses.
"My background was in construction and energy brokerage for a number of years before founding Legend," said Crosby. "The basis of it was helping customers understand how they're using energy, and how to use it better so that they can actually interact with markets more proactively and intelligently."
"That helps reduce your carbon footprint in the process," he added. "Our mantra is: it doesn't matter whether you're trying to save money or save the environment, you're going to do both of those things through efficiency -- which will also let you navigate markets more efficiently."
Legend EA's technology empowers the firm's clients to integrate all interrelated energy components of their businesses, while enabling clear, coherent communication across them.
This process drives transparency and accountability on “both sides of the meter,” as reckoned by the company, the better to eliminate physical and financial waste.
As stated on the firm's website, "This transparency drives change from the bottom up, enabling legitimate and demonstrable changes in enterprises’ environmental and financial sustainability."
Legend Analytics is offered as a software as a service (SaaS) platform, with consulting services tailored to the needs of individual customers, who include industrial firms and data center operators, in navigating the power market.
Additionally, the Ledge device, a network interface card (NIC), was recently introduced by Legend EA as a way to securely gather energy consumption data from any system in an organization and bring it to the cloud in real-time.
Here's a timeline of key points discussed on the podcast:
- 1:15 - Crosby details the three interconnected parts of his firm's service: commodity risk assessment, infrastructure services, and the Legend Analytics platform for understanding energy usage and efficiency.
- 2:39 - Crosby explains how the Legend Analytics platform works in the case of data center customers, by providing capabilities such as real-time metering at various levels of a facility, as well as automated carbon reporting.
- 4:46 - The discussion unpacks how the platform is offered as a SaaS, and includes consulting services tailored to each customer's needs.
- 7:49 - Notes on how the Legend Analytics platform can gather data from disparate systems and consolidate it into one dashboard, allowing for AI analysis and identification of previously unknown issues.
- 10:25 - Crosby reviews the importance of accurate and real-time emissions tracking for ESG reporting, and provides examples of how the Legend Analytics platform has helped identify errors and save costs for clients.
- 12:23 - Crosby explains how the company's new, proprietary NIC device, dubbed the Ledge, can securely gather data from any system and bring it to their cloud in real time, lowering costs and improving efficiency.
- 23:54 - Crosby touches on issues including challenges with power availability; trends in building fiber to power; utilizing power capacity from industrial plants; and on-site generation for enabling stable voltage.
Here are links to some recent related DCF articles:
- The Power Problem: Transmission Issues Slow Data Center Growth
- Google Is Now Reducing Data Center Energy Use During Local Power Emergencies
- DCF Online Educational Forums - Data Center Power
- CBRE Confirms Power Constraints Inhibit Record Data Center Demand
- Rethinking Data Center Power Will be Key to Sustainability
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About the Author
Matt Vincent
Matt Vincent is Editor in Chief of Data Center Frontier, where he leads editorial strategy and coverage focused on the infrastructure powering cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and the digital economy. A veteran B2B technology journalist with more than two decades of experience, Vincent specializes in the intersection of data centers, power, cooling, and emerging AI-era infrastructure. Since assuming the EIC role in 2023, he has helped guide Data Center Frontier’s coverage of the industry’s transition into the gigawatt-scale AI era, with a focus on hyperscale development, behind-the-meter power strategies, liquid cooling architectures, and the evolving energy demands of high-density compute, while working closely with the Digital Infrastructure Group at Endeavor Business Media to expand the brand’s analytical and multimedia footprint. Vincent also hosts The Data Center Frontier Show podcast, where he interviews industry leaders across hyperscale, colocation, utilities, and the data center supply chain to examine the technologies and business models reshaping digital infrastructure. Since its inception he serves as Head of Content for the Data Center Frontier Trends Summit. Before becoming Editor in Chief, he served in multiple senior editorial roles across Endeavor Business Media’s digital infrastructure portfolio, with coverage spanning data centers and hyperscale infrastructure, structured cabling and networking, telecom and datacom, IP physical security, and wireless and Pro AV markets. He began his career in 2005 within PennWell’s Advanced Technology Division and later held senior editorial positions supporting brands such as Cabling Installation & Maintenance, Lightwave Online, Broadband Technology Report, and Smart Buildings Technology. Vincent is a frequent moderator, interviewer, and keynote speaker at industry events including the HPC Forum, where he delivers forward-looking analysis on how AI and high-performance computing are reshaping digital infrastructure. He graduated with honors from Indiana University Bloomington with a B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing and lives in southern New Hampshire with his family, remaining an active musician in his spare time.
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