New research by Analytics Press has revealed that the rapid rates of growth in data centre electricity use that prevailed from 2000 to 2005 slowed significantly from 2005 to 2010.
The study found that electricity used by data centres worldwide increased by about 56% from 2005 to 2010 instead of doubling (as it did from 2000 to 2005), while in the US it increased by about 36% instead of doubling.
The total electricity use by data centres in 2010 was about 1.3% of all electricity use for the world, and 2% of all electricity use for the US, found the study.
Electricity used in global data centres in 2010 likely accounted for between 1.1% and 1.5% of total electricity use, respectively. For the US that number was between 1.7 and 2.2%, found the study.
Electricity used in US data centres in 2010 was also significantly lower than predicted by the EPA’s 2007 report to Congress on data centres.
The research also found that while Google is a high profile user of computer servers, less than 1% of electricity used by data centres worldwide was attributable to that company’s data centre operations.
On the Earth Day this year, the environmental watchdog Greenpeace had released a report on the effects of cloud computing which graded 10 technology companies based on energy use in their data centres.
According to the report, about half of the companies used coal to meet over half of their energy needs instead of renewable energy resources like wind and solar.
Apple, with 54.5%, got the worst score for its "coal intensity", Facebook was in a close second at 52.8%.
Greenpeace IT policy analyst Gary Cook had said, "Green IT should not be a choice between energy efficiency and clean electricity — companies need to give equal attention to both for green data centres," Cook said.
"As Yahoo and Google are demonstrating, forward-thinking companies can help lead us toward energy security and safety by stating a preference for renewable power and supporting strong policies that move us to a low-carbon economy."
