Metering and managing energy consumption in data centres

Rising prices, carbon regulation, and HEFCE targets are all making universities and colleges pay greater attention to their energy consumption and carbon emissions. As data centres are already around 8% of sector electricity consumption – and the proportion is rising – this means the area has to do more to improve energy efficiency. There are many cost-effective options now available to achieve this (see www.goodcampus.org for examples) but action is often blocked by difficulties in identifying the best improvement actions and/or by lack of financial incentives for IT departments to take action. Measuring and monitoring of energy consumption is central to solving both these problems. One key outcome from this can be the introduction of devolved energy budgeting, shared savings and other schemes which enable IT departments to benefit financially from improvement actions.

Workshop summary

Rising prices, carbon regulation, and HEFCE targets are all making universities and colleges pay greater attention to their energy consumption and carbon emissions. As data centres are already around 8% of sector electricity consumption – and the proportion is rising – this means the area has to do more to improve energy efficiency. There are many cost-effective options now available to achieve this (see www.goodcampus.org for examples) but action is often blocked by difficulties in identifying the best improvement actions and/or by lack of financial incentives for IT departments to take action. Measuring and monitoring of energy consumption is central to solving both these problems. One key outcome from this can be the introduction of devolved energy budgeting, shared savings and other schemes which enable IT departments to benefit financially from improvement actions.
 

Aims of the workshop:

This workshop builds on a successful predecessor at Leeds Metropolitan University (see presentations on www.goodcampus.org) Its aim is to examine sector experience, and to share knowledge, with a view to answering questions such as:

• What improvement actions can be taken in existing data centres?

• How can metered data be used to drive concrete improvement actions and make good business cases for improvement?

• What are the best locations, and devices, for metering?

• What kinds of non-metered data can be helpful to energy improvement?