To support a major market shift toward cloud computing and storage, coupled with the pervasive presence of consumer electronics, data centers have become a significant segment of U.S. energy consumption. In 2006, data centers in the United States used about 61 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity, representing approximately $4.5 billion and accounting for 1.5% of total U.S. electricity use.¹By the end of 2010, information technology (IT)-related energy needs consumed approximately 2.2% of all U.S. electricity.² Mounting energy use presents an added cost to consumers and a risk for our nation due to an aging grid. As data centers require more energy, and as the number of data centers needed to meet consumer demand grows, it will become increasingly important to make them more efficient.

A Competitive Advantage in the Internet Age

As individual companies and government entities attempt to reduce their own energy consumption, they are turning towards server consolidation -- the practice of removing small servers from their offices and lease server space in large computer centers, or simply moving all storage needs to the cloud. While these practices are more efficient overall, the demand for data center capacity will continue to grow. In light of this trend, data center managers can use efficiency measures to demonstrate that they are supplying the most competitive product while reducing one of their most significant operational costs -- energy. Advanced design practices, such as server virtualization, uses software applications to reduce the amount of physical servers needed for overall operation, can result in significant energy efficiencies. Another opportunity for energy efficiency is combined heat and power (CHP), which that can provide both efficiency gains and improved security by using efficient fuel sources and waste heat recovery that protects our nation’s valuable data.

Federal Data Center Energy Efficiency Initiatives

Since the release of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) report to Congress in 2006­ which found that the federal government data centers account for 10% of all U.S. energy use, the government has been working to make its operations more efficient while also providing resources and research for the IT industry. For example, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Manufacturing Office has developed a tool to help data center managers realize energy efficiency opportunities and is administering a program to train data center energy auditors. The EPA, too, has addressed data center energy use through its ENERGY STAR© program.

ENERGY STAR

As part of its ENERGY STAR program, EPA is collaborating with IT companies and organizations to develop standard energy measurement metrics that will streamline implementation of efficient design and practices for data centers. In February 2010, industry leaders finalized an agreement that established Power Usage Effectiveness as the preferred data center energy efficiency metric. Following this important initiative, EPA released an energy performance rating for data centers for the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager benchmarking tool, which rates participating data centers’ energy performance based on how they compare to similar buildings. On average, buildings (not just data centers) that receive ENERGY STAR recognition use 35% less energy and cost $0.50 less per square foot to operate.³

Facebook and Open Compute

In April 2011, following two years of research and design work, Facebook opened a super-efficient, custom data server in Pineville, Ore., that was able to do the same amount of work as Facebook’s other facilities while using 38% less energy and costing 24% less. These achievements stem from removing any traditional parts in the servers that did not contribute to efficiency, using hot air from the servers to heat offices in the winter and eliminating the need for a central, uninterrupted power supply. The model for this data center presents significant opportunities for companies to design and build their own energy-efficient custom servers.

To help others reach this level of efficiency, Facebook launched Open Compute, an initiative enabling IT industry members to easily share best practices and specifications for hardware used in super-efficient data centers.

Legrand Data Center Solutions

Legrand’s Data Center Solutions strategy is revolves around in the fact that data centers continually require denser concentrations of server racks. This is due not only to the increasing demand for data processing and storage services, but also to increased consolidation and use of the cloud.

In the spirit of cost-effectiveness, Legrand bases its efficiency models on the easy-to-implement cold-aisle/hot-aisle configuration that entails arranging servers so that the fronts face a cold aisle and all heat exhausts face each other to prevent the temperatures from mixing. Using its server infrastructure systems, Legrand has been able not only to decrease energy consumption, but also to increase density and security for data centers by mitigating the most common reason for equipment failure -- heat.
https://www.legrand.us/commercial/data-center-solutions.aspx

Spotlight on Ashburn, Virginia

Ashburn, Va., in Loudoun County, has been called “data center alley,” due to its high concentration of data centers. About half of all U.S. Internet traffic travels through Loudoun County, which currently contains 4.5 million square feet of data center space. One county official stated that this is expected to reach 6.5 million in the next 18 months and 10 million by 2021. The exponential growth of data centers is due primarily to the area’s low energy costs of around $0.05 per kWh, which is 34% lower than the U.S. average. But if the energy consumed by these high-power-use buildings is not managed, prices are bound to rise. Dominion Power estimates that at present, 10% of the electricity it sends to Northern Virginia is used for data centers. The company expects that amount to continually increase over time and is struggling to provide enough power using current resources, with the possibility that it may have to build additional substations. Building new power plants is not only extremely cost intensive but also tends to be met with resistance from area residents.

With these challenges also come opportunities for energy efficiency and enhanced reliability for Ashburn’s data center operations. CHP from on-site generation provides a significant opportunity for an area such as Ashburn, where there is a large stock of existing data centers located in relative proximity to one another. Many data centers are seeing the benefits of on-site generation to prevent dangerous and costly power outages, costing up to $30 million per minute. CHP uses the waste heat from generating electricity on-site for heating and cooling of the data centers, making them much more efficient and secure. Because these data centers are in so close to each other, they can also take advantage of district energy and work together to reduce the area’s energy consumption.

²Report to Congress on Server and Data Center Energy Efficiency Public Law 109-431. Rep. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ENERGY STAR Program, 2007. Website.

Alliance Policy Intern Ali Levine greatly contributed to this report.