The data centre industry is often criticised for its high-power consumption, leading to a negative perception among the general public. However, much of this criticism stems from misinformation and exaggerated figures.
In this blog, Future-tech’s Head of Technical Due Diligence Mark Acton debunks the common myth about data centre energy use, clarifies what drives power consumption in these facilities, and discusses how the industry can better communicate its role in the digital world.
Debunking Myths: The Overstated Power Consumption of Data Centres
The data centre sector faces frequent and repeated criticism for high power consumption levels and has a very negative perception within the general population.
The issue we continually face though is that network infrastructure power consumption figures are often sensationalised and over-reported. Data centre electricity power consumption is often incorrectly quoted as being 3% of annual global electricity production. In reality, this relates to digital infrastructure in total including network transmission. Data centres alone are estimated to have consumed around 1% to 1.5% in 2020. Communications networks alone were also 1% to 1.5% in 2020 and ICT in total, including end user devices, was 4% to 6%.
In addition to the power consumption figures for data centres being inflated, we have a habit as a sector of targeting the wrong elements within the data centre and consequently shooting ourselves in the foot when it comes to the media.
What Drives Power Consumption in Data Centres?
Let’s get it straight, data centre buildings do not consume power. They merely add an overhead to the energy consumed by the IT equipment they host (PUE!). As long as we continue to focus on the building rather than the IT load, we will never truly improve the energy efficiency of the data centre infrastructure, and will always be the fall guy for the power consumption by others.
The general population needs to understand that data centres are not merely consuming power for the sake of it. The real consumers are the end users of ICT services including all of us in the general population. Data centre power consumption is ultimately driven by the digital services we choose to consume both as a society and as individuals.
As a sector, we need to do far less finger-pointing at ourselves, far less misrepresentation of the facts, attribute far less blame to the buildings, and do a far better job of communicating where the power is really consumed. We need to educate and make sure that the general population fully understand the impact of using online services of any kind, in particular the energy and environmental consequences of the digital services they choose to consume.
The irony of environmental protesters at data centre events livestreaming videos or uploading and sharing images via Cloud platforms makes this point well!
Simply making the general public more aware of the impact of their digital service choices could have a huge impact on the power consumed in data centres. We do this with food labelling by highlighting the number of calories in the food we consume. We do not stop people eating high calorie food but the are made aware that the energy content is high so that they can make informed consumption choices. Why not something similar for the digital services we currently blindly consume with very little knowledge of their environmental impact?
For more thoughts on data centre energy consumption, read our blog Shifting the Blame: The Real Culprit Behind Data Centre Energy Consumption.
…
Mark’s expert insight is part of Inside Networks Magazines’ ‘Question Time’ segment. To read more answers by industry leaders, check out the May 2024 Issue from page 17.
…
Improve Data Centre Energy Efficiency With Future-tech
Future-tech leads the way in data centre innovation, offering expert data centre design, implementation, and network infrastructure solutions for both modern and legacy facilities. Our forward-thinking approaches ensure your data centre operates at peak performance, whilst maintaining reliability and uptime.
Whether you’re at the advisory stage of your data centre journey or looking to upgrade your current data centre storage infrastructure to more energy-efficient means, our experts at Future-tech can keep your data centre ahead of the curve. Discover our full range of services today, or contact our experts to find out more about how we can support your project.