Two surveys published this week revealed the confusion and contradictions at play in the energy use and conservation debate as despite coming under pressure to cut consumption datacenter operators are not given the necessary information on costs.

In the US the Data Center Decisions 2008 Purchasing Intentions Survey of more than 600 IT professionals found 84% thought energy use was a priority.

But over 30% were unable to compare this year's power bill with last year's.

That said, datacenter energy efficiency is moving up the agenda with hydrogen fuel cells, liquid cooling, DC power and better air conditioning efficiency gaining ground. However liquid cooling is unlikely to adopted by the majority of datacenter operators.

Meanwhile in the UK, research into IT energy use by the DMW Group revealed that only seven per cent of respondents were able to measure the power used by their IT and 68 per cent of organisations did not understand the energy efficiency of their datacenters. Over two-thirds of respondents said they had not set any targets to reduce their IT energy consumption, or made preparations for the predicted energy crunch'.