Making of a Green Data Centre

Mamta Rawat
Data centres make up 3% of global energy consumption. The main reason behind data centres being major energy guzzlers is the IT processing power, which has increased substantially to meet the growing demand for IT services by the Indian business community. With more processing, power consumption goes up, resulting in higher energy bills.
In fact, data centres consume upto 10 times more per sqm than a commercial office building. In a country where stable electricity supply and generation is a chronic problem, the demand for 24/7 uninterrupted power supply and high-volume consumption will always be an ongoing challenge. With over 100 data centres in operation in India, there is a need to address this issue on a priority basis.
Existing data centres, in general, are designed to adapt to increase in demand of processing capacity over a period of time, but considerations on energy consumption is often overlooked, even though it accounts for more than half of the operational costs. Improving energy efficiency is the only feasible option. On an average, the energy consumption in a data centre is distributed as shown below: