Data centre energy to cost £11m a year

The annual cost of the energy needed to run an average data centre in the UK will more than double to £11m by 2010, according to new research.

The study from analyst BroadGroup says costs will increase from today’s £5.3m a year, making the UK the most expensive country in Europe for housing data centres.

Keith Breed, research director at BroadGroup, says businesses are continuing to purchase increasingly powerful hardware that generates more heat and needs greater amounts of power to cool it. He says the situation is becoming untenable.

‘Part of the problem is that IT departments buy more hardware to improve performance, but the power bills go to facilities departments,’ said Breed.

‘This research suggests that data centres may have reached a crossroads where further increases in power consumption will not be sustainable beyond the short term,’ he said.

The amount of power consumed by data centres now represents about 30 per cent of their overall operating costs. Breed says new developments could quell growing power use.

‘Greener power consumption is becoming a selling point for data centre providers,’ he said.

‘London mayor Ken Livingstone says new buildings will have to conform to certain levels of carbon emissions.

‘This will have a huge effect on data centers based in the London area.’

Under the Draft Further Alterations to the London Plan, published by the mayor’s office in May, new developments will be required to connect to decentralised local energy. The regulations are expected to come into force in early 2008.

A spokeswoman at the mayor of London’s office says that the regulations will not affect existing buildings.

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Further Reading:

How IT can reduce its power use