US President George Bush has signed bipartisan legislation directing the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to study energy use in data centers.
The bill, H.R. 5646, was passed by the US Senate on 8 December, and will see the EPA working with computer makers to draft a study recommending whether government should adopt new incentives to handle the problem of rising power consumption in computer data centers.
The EPA has six months to submit the study, which will provide the data and analysis to help cultivate the purchase of energy efficient server technology by government and enterprise customers, to Congress.
The bill concludes that the rising need for data centers is due to the expansion of the Internet and web-based applications, as well as increasing electronic transactions. Most data center equipment is composed of servers, a segment of the IT market that industry analysts expect to grow in the US from 2.8 million units (US$20.7 billion) in 2005 to 4.9 million units ($25.1 billion) in 2009 - at a rate of almost 50 percent in five years according to a recent IDC US forecast that examined growth from 2005-to-2009.
Leading technology companies welcomed the passing of the bill. "Given the rising power demands of data centers and the costs associated with power consumption, our customers naturally want to ensure that they are using the most energy efficient servers that provide the best performance and value at the least risk to the environment, said Steve Kester, manager, AMD Government Relations.