Survey Says: Interest in Green Data Centres Declining

By Greg McNevin

February 20, 2009: Despite green initiatives delivering significant cost savings, a new survey has revealed that only one in eight data centre managers are implementing energy saving solutions to reduce carbon footprint, as opposed to one in three during 2008.

The survey canvassed attendees to this year's Data Centre World, with only one in eight data centre managers citing a desire to go green as the key reason for implementing energy saving solutions, a fall from one in three this time last year.

The effects of the credit crunch mean that reducing the carbon footprint of data centres has become less of a priority than ever before, however, while the desire to "go green" may be diminishing, over two thirds of data centres are still proactively implementing policies and technologies that will enable them to minimise power consumption.

Somewhat worryingly, the research also revealed that eight percent of data centre managers are not bothered about their future power consumption, and are not implementing any power saving strategies to be more green.

A further one in ten data centre managers would like to be doing more to reduce power consumption, but concerns that implementing these strategies would be too difficult and impact upon the service they can offer customers are preventing them from taking steps.

Not a single respondent thought that their data centre was already completely optimised in terms of energy efficiency, highlighting the fact that there is still plenty of room for improvement in the sector, and with only 2 percent of managers stating that being more economical would be prohibitively expensive, it is a realistic aspiration for most data centres.

"Last year, energy efficiency and power conservation were the words on everyone's lips, from Government-backed green initiatives, to businesses and households being encouraged to 'go green', today energy efficiency and power conservation are instead the main tools for keeping afloat during the credit crunch," says Sarah Williams, Event Director of Turret Group, organisers of Data Centre World.

"It is vital for data centres to cut costs at every possible opportunity in order to maintain their businesses, especially given the reduced customer demand at the moment. It is fantastic that so many data centres are taking steps to reduce their energy consumption - for whatever reason - as this can only have positive effects in the long run."

While being "green" may not be a priority during today's difficult economic climate, the fact still remains that any reduction in power is a positive thing for the industry - especially when data centre energy requirements are expected to double over the next four years.

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