Energy must not cost the earth

Firms must improve their energy efficiency or face severe financial consequences, according to analyst Gartner.

IT systems, in particular servers, are increasingly power hungry as technology capabilities increase, but this comes at a time when power supplies are more strained and less predictable.

‘We are talking about an increase of two to three times in energy costs over a three-year period,’ said Rakesh Kumar, vice president at Gartner. ‘That is a huge increase that an IT director will have to absorb and firms will get clobbered financially.’

Some data centres use as much energy as a small town, which is significant from both financial and environmental perspectives, says the Carbon Trust.

David Roberts, chief executive of user group the Corporate IT Forum, says the IT sector needs to accept responsibility for its high energy consumption.

‘The cost of energy and the demand for energy to run computers is colossal and growing. As computers become more pervasive we will only need more power rather than less,’ he said.

‘It would be inappropriate to pretend that the IT community is not consuming more than its fair share of electricity.’

Nick Monger-Godfrey, head of corporate social responsibility at the John Lewis Partnership, says reducing office power consumption is as important as purchasing more efficient servers.

‘We always consider the power and heat consumption levels of new hardware,’ he said. ‘All non-essential kit is turned off at night in our head office sites and branches, and we have procedures for powering down registers.’

Network Rail adopts a similar approach and monitors energy use and paper consumption.

Catherine Doran, Network Rail’s director of information management, says the company recently replaced 8,500 PC monitors with TFT screens, cutting consumption by two-thirds.

‘We have also launched an internal campaign: Think before you print. This aims to make office-based employees more aware of the environmental and business costs associated with unnecessary printing,’ she said.

Education is increasingly common among businesses. ‘We think firms should teach staff to take personal responsibility for the energy we use,’ said Ross Taylor, managing director of E.ON Information Services UK.

Equipment recycling will also be a key issue for the IT department thanks to the WEEE directive, which aims to minimise the impact of electrical goods on the environment when it comes into force on 1 January 2007.

Stephen Meredith, business improvement and technology HSE manager at EDF Energy, says recycling is key to sustainable working. ‘We are developing a sustainable futures strategy that covers activities from our environmentally friendly IT kit disposal policy to defaulting printers to print double-sided,’ he said.

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