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The next time you use Google, think of the vast amounts of power data centres use – 20 times that of a normal office. Stephen Kennett looks at what companies are doing to prune their consumption

Can a data centre ever be green? Although from the outside these nerve centres of today’s digital world might appear like little more than glorified industrial sheds, they in fact consume colossal amounts of energy. Stuffed full of the computer servers that provide the lifeblood of financial institutions and our demand for instant internet access, a typical data centre requires a power load in the range of 20-40MW, 15 to 20 times that of a typical office. But last year worldwide emissions from data centres topped 170 million tonnes of carbon and there’s little sign of it peaking. By 2020 they are predicted to quadruple, outstripping those of the airline industries.

This insatiable thirst for energy is beginning to attract the attention of US and European governments, with steps being taken to introduce legislation to curb consumption. However, some clients and operators are now developing what they claim to be green data centres. One is an Arup Associates-designed data centre in Frankfurt for financial giant Citi, which could be the first to achieve a LEED Platinum rating.

Check out this article about data center power utilization, it’s an interesting read and a topic of conversation that’s ongoing in Europe amongst other regions. Related to data center power is your data center carbon footprint and your operating costs, granted you as an end user might not be concerned about the amount of carbon generated or power used to provide your IT infrastructure, but consider that these costs are billed directly or in-directly to you. Simply adjusting the infrastructure setup, refreshing hardware, looking at your service level agreements or how you procure and provision your IT can reduce your environmental impact, the ability for your IT to deliver and your operating costs.

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