Rising energy costs increase focus on datacentre sustainability

ICT sustainability issues are becoming increasingly important in the corporate world, and the high volumes of electricity used by datacentres particularly puts them front and centre for carbon-reduction initiatives.

“Building datacentres and ongoing energy performance management are increasingly regulated,” says Steve McNab, environment and climate change partner at law firm Simmons & Simmons. “The ratchet is tightening, with governments and regulators demanding ever more stringent improvements.”

The Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme, for example, which came into force in April 2010 is a carbon emissions trading scheme that applies to all large organisations, public sector bodies, businesses and datacentres that consume more than 6,000mWh per year. Those who do not register are liable for a £5,000 fine plus an additional £500 per day for every working day they fail to register, up to a maximum of 80 working days.

Companies looking to avoid these potential penalties by outsourcing their infrastructure may be misguided: hosting companies themselves may end up paying any levy, and will undoubtedly look to pass their higher operational costs on to the customer in the form of increased prices.

But if energy prices continue to rise, the exorbitant costs of running datacentres may be enough to persuade many companies to mend their ways, says Harkeeret Singh at the Green Grid, who recommends various sources of advice on how power consumption can be reduced: everything from increasing server utilisation to improved datacentre management and configuration.

“There are all sorts of low-hanging fruit: EU best practice guidelines, which are free online; a PUE metric, which helps companies benchmark how efficient their facility is; even legacy sites can have an impact by making sure all servers inside them are really adding value to the business,” he says.

The Green Grid’s Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) metric is effectively a benchmark against which datacentre managers can compare their facility’s electricity usage. It recommends the use of metering, monitoring and analysis tools to track power usage and fluctuations during different processing loads, and covers individual datacentre components ranging from servers, storage arrays, routers and switches, displays and keyboard/video/mice devices, as well as other equipment used to monitor and manage that equipment.

Optimising datacentres from the ground up in terms of cooling and heating using hot aisle containment – and even exploring the idea of getting electricity supplies from renewable energy sources – may also reap environmental dividends.

“I struggle with the concept of renewable energy for UK datacentres; small wind turbines that continue to spin round when it is not so windy have small motors in them which also use electricity,” says the Carbon Trust’s Paul Huggins. “I’m not saying these things don’t work, only that perhaps they are not suitable for datacentres.”

“Datacentres might be able to make some use of solar panels, but I think we should be encouraging utility providers themselves to source more power from renewables,” added Singh. “As more companies buy green power for their datacentres, that will encourage more utilities to provide more of the same in other areas as well.”