Data centres will need to implement new efficiency measures to prevent their electricity usage spiralling in the next decade, researchers in the US report.
Data centres have only been able to stabilize their electricity usage over the past decade – despite rapidly increasing demand – because of efficiency improvements, particularly the shift from small to large facilities, the team found. But such efficiency improvements will not be enough for future energy stability.
“A lot of the efficiency gains [in] data centres so far have come from correcting some pretty egregious energy wasting practices – things like allowing cold and hot air to mix together, or continuing to run servers that aren’t actually doing anything useful,” says Arman Shehabi at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, US. “Once [these have been corrected], the potential for improvement slows down. We’re not there yet, but … it’s not too far away.” […]
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