On June 7, 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) announced an addition to its Energy Star rating system – this one for data centers.
For several years now, USEPA has been promoting the Energy Star label for equipment and buildings that demonstrate high energy efficiency. Data centers have long been enormous hogs of power, and this new rating should provide some additional punch to the movement to reduce that power demand.
USEPA has estimated that data centers nationwide could be using 100 billion kWh in 2011. That’s about 2.5% of the entire electricity usage in the United States and is estimated to cost $7.4 billion each year. Make these 25% more efficient (saving $18,500,000,000), and you have enough to fund NASA. Or I suppose you could build eight nuclear power plants dedicated to running data centers.
The upshot is that tremendous efficiency advances have taken place in designing and building data centers – which require significant cooling – as well as in the technology housed in those centers. For example, an Energy Star label for servers was unveiled in 2009. At the same time, demand for computing power is continuing to increase. Balancing these factors, and the cold reality of cash flow, is a challenge to all IT departments.
There are so many reasons to work on energy efficiency in buildings and equipment. Higher energy costs mean less money for other operations. In Alabama, as in all hot climates, the demand for electricity is significantly higher in the summer months. Data centers, which require uninterrupted power, have to compete with air conditioning systems for that electricity. Energy costs will continue to increase as demand grows internationally, fuel becomes more costly and new power plants must be paid for.
A few tips for managing or upgrading an existing data center or computing system:
- Whenever possible, purchase equipment that meets EPEAT standards. These are energy efficiency ratings for computers that typically exceed Energy Star ratings, compiled by a credible non-profit organization. Multiple U.S. government agencies, as well as other governments and corporations, require EPEAT standards for IT equipment purchases.
- Evaluate your usage and ensure your energy management plan is optimal.
- Research local power market rates. It may be cost-effective to run certain processes in different hours, when the electricity rates are a fraction of their daytime rate. This does not conserve electricity, but does help spread demand.
- Install motion sensors and other automatic controls for managing the non-computing energy load, such as lighting – which also generate heat.
- Enable power management features on all remote consoles. “Off” always uses less power than “On.
Details on USEPA’s data center program can be found here.
This article was originally written by Keith Johns of Resolutions LLC for Technology Alabama Magazine.
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