The future of data centers is wedded to a reliable and cost-effective energy supply, McCausland Keen & Buckman's Andrew Maguire tells us. That's why we're excited to hear from Andrew and other data center experts at Bisnow's 3rd Annual Greater Philadelphia Data Center event beginning at 7:30am on April 22 at the Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia.

Andrew says that data center owners and operators will drive harder bargains than ever with traditional utility companies and competing private energy suppliers to reduce their typically high energy costs. "With bargaining power tied to aggregate usage, owners can opt for fixed-price contracts to guard against energy price fluctuation caused by unusually cold winters and hot summers, or 'guaranteed discount' agreements that represent a reduction off of the prevailing utility company rates," he says.

Another data center trend Andrew sees involves a continued push to explore repurposing of vacant commercial buildings into data centers. One of the most massive repurposings of a facility is by Apple, which recently announced its intention to convert its 1.4M SF former sapphire manufacturing plant in Mesa, AZ, to a data center.

Driving data center demand closer to home are education and medicine, both of which are maturing in the digitization of their respective industries, Netrality @ 401 North Broad general manager John Diamond, another of our speakers, tells us. More broadly, the drive to reduce internal overhead for corporate technology and the move toward cloud environments mean that southeastern PA is experiencing the largest regional growth in technology facilities since the '90s.

SAP facility manager James Dodd, who will also be a speaker, tells us that the cloud is the driving force behind data center expansion, because the cloud isn't just for large data users. "SAP wants to be the cloud company not only for its current customers, but to focus on scalability of our software for small to medium-sized enterprises who can’t or won’t invest in their own data centers," he explains. "The cloud and our S4/Hana high-speed analytics device will change the way people do business." Join us for the 3rd Annual Bisnow Greater Philadelphia Data Center Boom beginning at 7:30am on April 22 at the Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia! (Sign up here.)