EPA see $4B in electricity saving for the data center
The U.S. EPA Energy Star Program released a report on server and data center efficiency(PDF) this month. The study was in response to Public Law 109–431(PDF), which required EPA to analyze "the rapid growth and energy consumption of computer data centers by the Federal Government and private enterprise". The Law goes on to say, "It is the sense of Congress that it is in the best interest of the U.S. for purchasers of computer servers to give high priority to energy efficiency as a factor in determining best value and performance for purchases of computer servers."
The increased federal attention to server efficiency is good news for Sun, particularly in light of the recently announced UltraSPARC T2 processor, a.k.a. Niagra 2, which, at two watts per thread, will clobber the competition in most commercial SWaP comparisons.
Where it comes to energy demand, the EPA report keeps the big picture in focus, citing that IT is not only part of the problem, but also part of the solution:
"The data processing and communication services provided by data centers can also lead to indirect reductions in energy use in the broader economy, which can exceed the incremental data center energy expenditures in some cases. For instance, e-commerce and telecommuting can reduce both freight and passenger transportation energy use."
The authors recommend quantifying this indirect reduction through IT services in future research. This is a largely untapped source of energy conservation for which a range of alternatives exist. For example, using technology such as the 4 watt SunRay thin client, businesses could shift employee desktop computing tasks to run on optimally efficient servers in the data center, rather than the mostly idle 200+ watt computer at every desk scenario that dominates corporate work environments. Companies could also employ work at home programs like Sun's Open Work, and make much greater use of video conferencing and web meeting software. These conservation efforts inevitably increase energy demand in data centers, but clearly offset much larger energy demand by providing reasonable alternatives to some very energy intensive practices that dominate business culture today.
Seperate from any empirical consideration of such indirect energy reductions, the report estimates that by 2011 U.S. businesses could shave off $4.1B in data center electricity costs annually just by following best practice outlined in the report. Considering that total U.S. data center electricity costs in 2006 were $4.5B, that's a lot of efficiency gain by 2011.
Interestingly, the $4.1B potential data center savings is mirrored by the potential savings determined by a Harris Interactive poll commissioned by Sun, for conservation in the office by workers. The results of the poll, released August 1, indicate that energy-conscious behaviors of U.S. office workers can save $4.3B in energy costs per year. With a flip of two switches (lights off, computer off,) workers can make a huge collective difference, equivalent to taking 6.1M cars' CO2 emissions out of the atmosphere.
So we're looking at potential savings of $8.4B, just by doing what we already know how to do, with no compromise to services or productivity. Add in whatever additional energy can be saved by replacing energy intensive business practices with services over the network and you've got a really good economic case for aggressively pursuing energy efficiency in the data center and the workplace.
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