I read a couple of interesting articles recently about data centres and managing their energy use. In an article in the Environmentalist (which unfortunately is not open access) Intel claims that an esitimated 7.5% of the power going into datacentres actually does what it’s intended to do. That leaves a staggering 92.5% to be picked up through efficiency and design changes. Furthermore, 60% of the total energy bill is for cooling! So it was encouraging to see that an operator based in Wales claims to be the first in Europe to run a facility on 100 percent renewable energy.
See also Greenpeace’s report on make IT green.
