In 2005, data centers and their associated infrastructure in the US alone, consumed five million kW of energy, the equivalent of five 1,000MW power plants. This staggering statistic was just one of the many findings revealed in a keynote address at the LinuxWorld OpenSolutions Summit in New York, by Randy Allen, corporate vice president, Server and Workstation Division, AMD.
Supported by a grant from AMD and authored by Jonathan Koomey, Ph.D., staff scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories and consulting professor, Stanford University, the study, Estimating Total Power Consumption by Servers in the US and the World' calculates the total power used by servers both in the US and around the world. The study builds on data from analyst firm IDC on the stocks and shipments of servers, as well as measured data and published estimates of the power per unit used by various server models.
Dr. Koomey's study was subject to peer review by IT industry, government and energy efficiency policy professionals.
The study found that in 2005, total data center electricity consumption in the US including servers, cooling and auxiliary equipment, was approximately 45 billion kWh, resulting in total utility bills amounting to US$2.7 billion, with total data center power and electricity consumption for the world estimated to cost $7.2 billion annually. The report also examines the growth in electricity demands since the year 2000, concluding that over the last five years server energy use has doubled.
While highlighting the increasing consumption of energy by data centers, AMD is using the study to promote its new generation of energy-efficient servers, notably, its dual core Opteron processors.
To learn more about the study, please visit: http://http://enterprise.amd.com/us-en/AMD-Business/Technology-Home/Power-Management.aspx