Getting Smart About Energy

According to a study released by AMD, there is a shift in the patterns of
worldwide datacenter energy use at regional levels. The study which was
conducted by Dr Jonathan Koomey, using data from IDC, documents energy use
across five regions-the US, Western Europe, Japan, APAC (excluding Japan) and
rest of the world.

It forecasts datacenter energy consumption, estimating that by 2010, the US
consumption will decline relatively as compared to consumption worldwide. Based
on the current growth trends, the US share of total world server electricity use
from datacenters is likely to decline from 40 percent in 2000 to about one-third
by 2010, while the APAC region (excluding Japan) will increase its share from 10
percent to about 16 percent over that period.

The absolute electricity consumption for servers in the APAC region under
this scenario would more than double from 2005 to 2010, requiring electricity
capacity equal to output from two new 1,000MW power plants. For the entire
world, server consumption from 2005 to 2010 would require additional capacity
equal to more than 10 additional 1,000MW power plants.

“We hope that this research helps bridge the gap between knowledge and action
by furthering worldwide understan­ding of the economic and environmental costs
associated with escalating datacenter energy consumption,” said Bruce Shaw,
Director-Server and Workstation Marketing, AMD. “According to a recent US EPA
report, datacenter energy consumption in the US, five years down the line, could
be cut by as much as 20 percent with relatively minor efforts by datacenter
managers, including turning on available power management features, enabling
higher rates of resource consolidation, shutting off unused servers and
improving infrastructure operations.”

Who stands where?

Dr Koomey's report shows that electricity used by servers in the US and
Europe, currently comprise about two-third of the world's total energy
consumption with Japan, APAC and the rest of the world each falling at between
10 and 15 percent of the total. Examining electricity use by region from 2000 to
2005, the study found that server electricity use in the APAC region (excluding
Japan) grew at a rate of 23 percent annually, compared to a world average of 16
percent a year, making this region the only one with server electricity use
growing at a rate significantly greater than the world average. The Western
European growth rate of 17 percent was slightly above the world average, while
growth rates in the other regions were lower than the world average.

Datacenters throughout the world are designed and operated in similar ways to
those in the US. Accordingly, if the 20 percent savings estimated in the EPA
report are applied to Dr Koomey's projections for global datacenter electricity
use in 2010, total savings would equal approximately five 1,000MW power plants.
In other words, relatively modest changes in the way datacenters are designed
and operated could offset approximately half the expected growth in global
datacenter electricity use in 2010.

“With the released findings, we can begin to take next steps, including
examining how we can power datacenters around the world while addressing impacts
on global climate,” said Larry Vertal, Senior Strategist, AMD Green.

This new research adds detail to an AMD-sponsored study published in February
that identified the worldwide costs associated with datacenter energy use,
finding that in 2005, the total datacenter electricity consumption in the US
(including servers, cooling and auxiliary equipment) was approximately 45
billion KW, resulting in total utility bills amounting to $2.7 billion.

Courtesy AMD