Survey: Green Interest Declines

LONDON -- A survey of registered attendees at this years Data Centre World has revealed that only one in eight data centre managers cite a desire to go green as the key reason for implementing energy saving solutions, falling 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; saving money is still the number one reason for lowering power consumption in today’s data centres, according to the new survey released today by the organisers of Data Centre World, the UK’s first and only data centre expo (24th and 25th February 2009 at the Barbican, London).

The more positive news is that over two thirds of data centres are proactively implementing policies and technologies that will enable them to minimise power consumption. Although the primary reason given for this was to save money 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. Any curb on this will be a welcome shift for the sector.

Worryingly, the research also revealed that 8% 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 dangerous attitude given the sector’s power-hungry reputation. 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% of managers stating that being more economical would be prohibitively expensive, it is a realistic aspiration for most data centres.

Sarah Williams, Event Director of Turret Group, organisers of Data Centre World comments:

“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. 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.”

Data Centre World