Energy cost of data centres is not sustainable

A meltdown threatens by 2010

Data centres have reached a crossroad in terms of energy consumption. Up to now, the primary concern of data centres was to satisfy unrelenting IT demands by increasing processing power. Servers with higher density are being installed, taking less space while offering an increased transaction power. But those servers also consume more electrical power.

According to the Power and Cooling Survey 2006, a report by the Data Centre Practice at analyst BroadGroup, the rising energy costs will jeopardise the operational viability of the UK data centres by 2010. The report expects the energy cost of the average UK data centre to double between 2006 and 2010.

Solutions are being developed

Solutions are being investigated at both the technological and business level. Data centres have very low energy-efficiency, with about 50% of the consumed power dissipated as heat. Solutions to increase energy efficiency currently under development are, for example, ultra-thin high density servers, virtualisation technologies that spread the use of computing resources, and nano-fluid cooling systems.

On the organisational level, adapted business models are being investigated. These include the bulk purchase of electricity or billing the energy costs directly to the data centre customers.