Powering the cloud

Powering the cloud Global data centers = 1.5x NYC energy requirement Every time you upload a video, share a photo, email a friend, tweet your location or check your bank balance your web device talks to a data center. Rows of servers storing trillions of megabytes of infomation live in vast, energy hungry computing complexes that power the Web. The energy impact of data centers Data centers are responsible for about 2% of global carbon emissions today and use 80 million megawatt-hours of energy annually, almost 1.5 times the amount of electricity used by the whole of New York City. 1 Data Center = , 25,000 US houses By 2020, at current growth rates and without improvements in energy efficiency data centers will produce 359 megatons of co =48% uS cars Impacts of data centers Opportunities for efficiency A significant proportion of Servers 25% the average organization's IT budget is allocated Significant amounts of energy can be saved solely to data center operations. (excluding sotware through improvements in server design and management. $$$$ In a typical data center some of these improvements could individually reduce impact by: Servers Reducing power demand by 27% 27% through virtualization, 10% unused 5.75 million new servers are which reduces idle capacity. installed every year to keep up with growth in online Taking 6,500 cars off the road services, yet approximately 10% of installed servers are by using Energy Star compliant servers can reduce a data unused due to overly con- center's power consumption servative canacitv olannina. 2,500 Servers are often oversized to cope with peak US demand, meaning that on average they run at only 20% capacity. Cooling Cooling Improving airfiow management, using variable Computer equipment creates lots of heat speed drives for cooling fans and operating the Cooling makes up around data center within a slightly wider, yet safe 30% of total energy usage temperature range can reduce energy needs by in the average data center. up to 25%. In some data centers that is enough This means around $281 energy to power 25,000 US homes. million dollars goes out of the window. The payback time when retro- $281 million fitting a data center with state of art energy efficient cooling can be as little as 2 years. Infrastructure 2013 Infrastructure up uve iut ayuare os, uny ditng to house 17 football fields. These buildings use more than 100 times the Using a DC power supply architecture within a energy of a similarly sized building. data center can eliminate redundant equipment and reduce power losses in the conversion process by up to 20%. Energy consumption per m2 In addition the average data center could Data center save up to $47 million in real estate costs by eliminating the space required by redundant AC power equipment. Office If the world's data centers 5. 1 Standby power batteries. switched to newly available DC power microchips and many other components inside supply technology, which is up to 97% efficient, the IT equipment run on DC power. Since today's data centers have AC power annual energy savings would be enough to infrastructures (like your power your iPad for a AC > DC very very long time: home or office) power has AC DC to be converted at 5 different stages within the data center. This means that 20% of the energy is wasted within a data center's electricity infrastructure. This produces carbon 70 million years emissions equivalent to driving to Mars and back Mars 700 times. At 55mph that DC power infrastructure also provides easier would take 308,000 integration of photovoltaic solar panels, which year. 700 generate DC power output. Reliability and availability are also improved through a reduction in power supply components. For more information talk to us on Twitter Earth GDCdatacenters or visit www.ABB.com Sources TheGreennd.org, Detning the impacts of Unused Servers US Envirenmental Protection Agency. Report to Congs on Server and Data Center Eney Eciency Pubic Law 100431 ABB interral timats City of New York, Mayors Office. Wb Ste Enery Star Jo euS Environmenta Protection Agency nd the US US Depiartnent of Energy. Data Center Consumption Trunds US Department of Energs Federal Energy Management Program US Energy infonmation Adninistration Moineey & Company. Revoluionising Data Center Erergy Ecncy State of Calfomia. Web Ste The Climate Group. Erabing The Low Carbon Economy in the Infomation Age ABB Power and productivity for a better world ....