Data Centers Recent Demand for Energy Efficiency

Big Data Centers Looking for Energy Efficiency Solutions

America stands as the second-largest consumer of electricity, just behind the world’s manufacturing hub, China. But with over 80% of American’s feeling that they pay too much for energy; solutions to increase energy efficiency, reduce energy waste and renewable energy solutions are on the rise as America works to reduce energy spend. Last year electricity sales rose – even if only by 3% – for the first time since 2007. But there is one market, where no matter how hard they work to implement energy efficiency solutions, the demand for more electricity continues to rise due to their growth, a growth which experts say will continue until 2024 if not more: DATA CENTERS.

The more we use the internet and cloud-based solutions, the more data centers require electricity. Datacenter energy use can be split into two main parts, the energy it takes to run the data centers and keep the computers cooled, on, etc. and the energy used to power the servers’ computing power – the most import part.

While solutions are constantly on the rise for reducing the energy use of both; data centers across the world are looking for energy efficiency solutions that will allow them to dedicate more and more energy to computing power and less and less energy towards hardware and cooling. It’s to no surprise that a lot of the bigger data centers are located in the North, where they can take advantage of already existing cold climates to cool the servers.

Data centers measure their energy efficiency by “PUE” (Power Usage Effectiveness Ratio). The national average currently being at 1.67, meaning only 60% of the energy used by the data center is used towards computing power. Other larger data centers, such as Google, report an average of 1.1, with some locations going as low as 1.06.

A lower PUE rating means a more efficient data center, which in turn means lower operating costs for both the owner/operator and customer. A data center that makes the best use of its power without wasting available resources costs less to maintain and manage, and these savings can be passed on to the customers.

Here you can see a quick video released by Energy Professionals, where President, Jim Mathers, speaks about the importance of PUE and how we can help: