Most data centres in the UK will not be cutting their energy use in 2012. In fact, three-quarters will be using more electricity, despite pressure from energy costs and green taxes.
Rising energy costs are supposed to be making data centres more energy-conscious, and energy taxes such as the CRC energy efficiency scheme are designed have the same effect, but still 76 percent of the UK’s data centres expect to use more energy this year, according to a survey by Data Centre World.
While some of the increase may be down to growth and increased levels of business, it is also being produced by inefficient use of energy, despite the existence of schemes such as the EU Code of Conduct, a set of best practices for green data centres.
Asked about Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), the measure of data centre efficiency, around half those surveyed admitted they did not know what their PUE is, or were aware that it was over 2.0 – meaning that for every Watt of power supplied to their IT racks, a Watt is wasted in cooling down the systems.
Around half (46 percent) don’t have a PUE target or have missed it, and nearly a third (31 percent) admnitted they did not know what PUE is (it is calculated by dividing the power supplied to the data centre, by the power that reaches the IT equipment).
“Although the UK has some of the most advanced data centres in the world, the survey shows there is still a great deal of work that needs to be done,” said John Hatcher, director of the Data Centre World conference which takes place 29 february to 1 March in London. ” If we’re to see a credible reduction in data centre carbon footprint in our lifetime, the industry needs to embrace innovative green technologies available to cool and power facilities across the UK.”
The survey is based on 70 responses to an online survey distributed during November and December 2011, to 6,000 IT decision makers who operate or plan to operate a data centre and third party data centre operators.
Tesla retreats from pioneering gigacasting manufacturing process, amid cost cutting and challenges at EV giant
No skynet please. After the US, UK and France pledge human only control of nuclear…
Microsoft's AI investments continue in south east Asia, after investments in Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, as…
New chapter for LastPass as it becomes an independent company to focus on cybersecurity, after…
US FCC seeks to ban Chinese telecom firms at centre of national security concerns from…
Two updates to Anthropic's AI chatbot Claude sees arrival of a new business-focused plan, as…
View Comments
A key first step to understanding data centre energy consumption is to have granular, automated metering and monitoring in place. This capability is frequently missing even in large data centres operated by sophisticated organisations. Products like our InSite software can deliver sub-year RoI and savings of 30% in energy consumption. It is financially irresponsible not to be investigating and deploying these technologies in data centres.