FEATURE : GREEN DATA CENTRES
Finding the perfect balance between sustainability and performance
Andy Connor , Channel Director , EMEA , Subzero Engineering , discusses the need for data centre leaders to become more aware of the environmental consequences of their digital footprint and how best to monitor it as demand for sustainable operations places more pressure upon the industry .
In 2020 , the Uptime Institute ’ s , Andy Lawrence stated : ‘ The average power usage effectiveness ( PUE ) ratio for a data centre is 1.58 , only marginally better than seven years ago ’.
This revelation may come as a welcome shock and while it might be overstating the situation to characterise data centre energy usage as the Internet ’ s ‘ dirty secret ’, there ’ s little doubt that the reality of the sector ’ s carbon impact has been masked by the many headlines which focus solely on its sustainability successes . contribute to data centre sustainability improvements , they do not directly address the issue of data centre power consumption .
Data centre power usage
Today there are many estimates as to the amount of power that data centres across the globe consume on an annual basis . Energy Innovation estimates that , in 2018 , data centres likely consumed 205 terrawatt-hours ( TWh ), which equates to 1 % of total global electricity .
Colt Data Centre Services , for example , recently announced that its operations across Europe are now fully powered by 100 % renewable energy , while many members of the US hyperscale community are publicly revealing their latest renewable energy projects and initiatives .
Carbon offsetting is another idea quickly embraced by end-users , vendors and operators of all shapes and sizes , and while all of these activities , in part ,
However , the authors of a paper published in Global Energy Interconnection in June 2020 state that ‘ data centres will become the world ’ s largest users of energy consumption , with the ratio rising from 3 % in 2017 to 4.5 % in 2025 ’.
The data differs again in the January 2020 Uptime Institute Journal , which reports EU data centre energy consumption figures of 130 TWh in 2017 , alongside Greenpeace ’ s 2018 Chinese data centre figure of 160
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