Less IT waste
You may turn off the lights, but are you saving with Internet use? The Internet’s steadily increasing demand for electricity is a great challenge. Some people believe that the Internet has become too popular and is in danger of causing its own downfall.
A study commissioned by the US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the USA’s data servers used 61 billion kilowatt hours in 2006. This represents 1.5 percent of the USA’s total electricity consumption.Before Google became carbon neutral a query would create 0,2 grams of CO2 emissions. This does not sound like a lot – until you multiply it by several billion queries per day.
Some companies are now considering locating their data equipment at sea, so they can exploit wave or tidal energy to meet power needs, and use sea water to cool the systems down. Fortunately, there are many intelligent solutions to reduce energy waste from IT systems. But some of these techniques require planning. A well-designed computer room can use up to 30 percent less energy in comparison with a poorly-designed room. Servers and PCs generate heat and in the average server room over half of the energy is used for cooling purposes. One solution is to use the surplus heat, for instance, to heat the building or other buildings by means of centralised heating.
