Our Chris Cutler tells The Stack how improving data centre energy efficiency makes environmental AND economic sense.
Electricity often accounts for more than half a datacentre’s overall running costs. Data centres already consume around 3% of the world’s total electricity supply. And they produce 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That’s the equivalent of the airline industry.
With the explosion in connected devices inspired by the ‘Internet of Things’ and Industry 4.0, the demand for data capacity is only going to get bigger.
But the power to store and process these terabytes of new information will come at a cost. In an age of hyper-scale facilities, it’s not unusual for a datacentre to consume 30 GWh of power a year. That’s an annual electricity bill of more than £3 million.
Our data centre energy efficiency expert Chris Cutler spoke to influential industry website The Stack and explained how administrators and facility managers can “do more with less”.
What’s The Point Of Power Usage Effectiveness?
He assesses the pros and cons of measuring efficiency using the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) rating. The article also looks at the ‘rival’ metrics that have cropped up. Will any challenge the hegemony of PUE?
Chris then goes on to cover how the move to modular UPS is having a hugely positive impact on energy consumption in data centres. Gone are the days of oversized, inefficient static UPS units that can only operate efficiently at heavy loads. These power protection systems are now replaced with modular, transformerless technology that runs at around 96% efficiency even across loads as low as 25%.
Other advantages of modular UPS are also covered, including how their ‘hot swappable’ nature ensuring ease of UPS maintenance without the system having to go offline.
Read the full article over at The Stack portal. You’ll also see a case study where a data centre saved £335,000 on its annual energy bills by upgrading its UPS units.
