Do you have any idea how many data centers are there in the U.S? According to Department of Energy (DOE) statistics, there are 3 million data centers in the U.S. and the number of data centers is increasing. As a result, there is a whooping pressure on the power. And this could be a catastrophic in the near future.
Data centers are the key backbone of the cloud. These data centers are growing larger and more energy intensive. It’s been found that there are already about 3 million data centers in the U.S. According to a press release, the data centers together consume more than 90 megawatts of electricity per year which is equivalent to power 90,000 homes each year.
On the other hand, according to DOE statistics, usage of electricity consumed by data centers went doubled between 2001 to 2006, from 30 to 60 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. In 2013, the figure reached to about 100 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. Do you know that half of the energy used to power a data center is used for the cooling and powering of equipment? And where the other half goes? Well, the rest 50% goes to run the servers and other IT equipment.
This refers that the more data centers, the more consumption of electricity. And this is not a good sign. So, last Tuesday, DOE launched a new initiative (Better Buildings Challenge), which Obama administration had established in 2011, in order to improve their energy efficiency. Now the DOE is trying to improve the energy efficiency of the U.S. economy. But how?
Well, the new initiative seeks to make all data centers operated by the partner companies and agencies at least 20% more efficient by 2020. If all U.S. data centers met this efficiency goal, it could yield about $2 billion in cost savings and save more than 20 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity by 2020.
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Thanks To: Mashable
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