INDUSTRY INTELLIGENCE POWERED BY THE DCA
The National Grid in the UK forecasts electricity demand will double by 2050 as we move towards a low-carbon future .
constant energy supply , is at real risk of outages . Aggreko ’ s latest report The Power Struggle : Data Centres , a survey of 253 UK and Irish data centre professionals , revealed that high numbers of data centre facilities have already experienced power outages and many of those have major concerns over future power continuity . The likelihood is that this will increase as society ’ s electricity demand grows over the medium term .
The data centre sector will have to compete harder for its electricity supply while at the same time growing . The data centre industry is predicted to grow by 500 % globally by 2050 , putting it in line for increased electricity needs at a time where provision is less secure . Global data centre electricity use in 2021 was 220 – 320 TWh2 ( excluding energy used for cryptocurrency mining ), or around 0.9 – 1.3 % of global final electricity demand . As we move towards a renewable grid , the sector will have increased data and therefore energy requirements . It will have to justify that usage ever more stringently as time goes on .
Efficiency is key to this and other sectors clearly demonstrate how possible this is . According to the Climate Change Committee ’ s sixth carbon budget , electricity demand was around 300 TWh in 2018 , down by 12 % from 2008 levels , even as the UK population grew by 7 %. This is due to improvements in energy efficiency of lighting and appliances . The data centre – a large energy user – has the potential to realise similar savings by understanding and addressing its use of IT hardware .
Rather than face temporary shutdowns , data centres can look to consolidating their server estates to generate the same amount of compute power for a much lower energy draw . The IT is responsible for around 70 % of the average data centre ’ s energy bill . Targeted analysis of the servers can save up to 60 % of their electricity usage .
Running the numbers
Interact has analysed over 300 data centres and identified the worst performing servers in the estate . By cross-referencing these against the thousands of makes , models and configurations available in the database , it has recommended the optimum number of replacement models . These can deliver the same amount of compute power with drastically reduced server footprint and energy draw . We saw a 65 – 75 % reduction in energy draw for an identical number of transactions , which averaged out at around £ 1.3 million over five years before prices changed .
Keeping the lights on , powering cars and running data centres will not be straightforward , but if we can use the tools at our disposal , it might be possible . �
Rich Kenny , MD , Interact
Keeping the lights on , powering cars and running data centres will not be straightforward , but if we can use the tools at our disposal , it might be possible .
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