FEATURE

Industry Report , which surveyed over 100 senior IT professionals , unsurprisingly is dominated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the technology changes and challenges that it has brought to business and its effect on people ’ s ability to work , their priorities and decision-making processes .

However , we also wanted to ensure that we captured other issues in our questions in order to ensure some continuity . One of these was the continuing importance of the green agenda . Over three-quarters of this year ’ s respondents stated that sustainability will have a medium or high influence on IT decisions over the next 12 months .

This is perhaps no surprise . There is no doubt that energy and carbon are high on political agendas and that we are likely to see more policy measures , particularly if the UK is to reach our legally binding zero-carbon target in the UK by 2050 . The European Commission , meanwhile , is rolling out a hugely ambitious package of environmental measures and data centres are firmly in the firing line ; the sector must be climate-neutral by 2030 , for instance .

Depending on your source , the data centre sector accounts for between 2 – 3 % of all global electricity usage which means that there is likely to be continued pressure for operators to be more efficient . This may well be in part driven by the customers who will be keen to align with suppliers who may share their sustainability values .

As political and commercial drivers focus more on sustainability , this suggests an interesting road ahead , with governmentbacked commercial incentives likely to help drive this . For example , The Industrial Energy Transformation Fund ( IETF ) will support the development of technologies that enable businesses with high energy use to transition to a low-carbon future . The fund provides £ 315 million of funding up to 2024 for projects starting before April 2022 , with minimum grants of £ 250,000 to support technologies such as more efficient cooling ( Heat Exchange ) systems .

However , given other pressures , will this focus continue unless there is a clear commercial benefit ? We believe that this is unlikely and have been working closely with our clients to deliver solutions that are both sustainable and cost-effective .

Earlier this year we launched a new service designed to help companies to optimise the energy efficiency of their data centres , saving money and reducing carbon . EOS ( Energy Optimisation Study ) also provides relevant and accurate data that can be utilised for mandatory regulatory reporting requirements such as SECR ( streamlined energy and carbon reporting ) and help companies to avoid costly penalties .

The study includes an understanding of the facility utilisation and required operation , along with an assessment of the power and cooling infrastructure . Opportunities to optimise are identified along with their savings and return periods in order to identify recommendations which suit the life cycle of the facility and the IT within it .

Our decision to relaunch this service follows a recent survey by the Uptime Institute which reported an industry average PUE for 2019 among respondents was 1.67 , which suggests that improvements in data centre facility energy efficiency have flattened out and even deteriorated slightly in the past www . intelligentdatacentres . com

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